On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 20:25:55 +0000 (UTC), "Jayne"
wrote:

My daughter is growing radishes & is fed up that there are teeny little
holes in the leaves as she wanted to enter her radishes in the village WI
flower show competition next month - any idea what is eating them?
Also there are some very small yellow eggs on the leaves - I'm wondering
what they are too - ladybirds?


The small yellow eggs sound like cabbage butterfly eggs to
me - they are the small white butterflies you see fluttering
around the cabbage-family plants (which includes radishes).
The eggs hatch into worms that eat round holes in the
leaves.

Flea beetles also eat holes in the leaves.

It's probably too late for these particular radishes now,
but next season, the damage from the cabbage worms can be
avoided by covering the plants with floating row cover or by
spraying them with Bt - a bacterial-disease that affects
only insects. One brand of Bt is called 'Dipel'.

I don't think Bt is effective against flea beetles.
Sprinkling a little diatomaceous earth around the plants (to
kill existing flea beetles near the plants) then covering
them with floating row cover is effective. You need to be
very careful with the row cover, to fasten it down very
carefully. Then you can water right through it.

Or you could try growing the radishes in a container on your
porch or deck and hope the flea beetles won't find it.

This seems to me like an awful lot of trouble for radishes
(which I don't even like), but maybe it's worth it for a
blue ribbon at the fair!

Pat