Our friends-husband French, wife Italian are fanatical vegetable gardeners, growing mainly continental varieties in a secluded Italian type walled garden with a warm sheltered microclimate.
They suffer the usual round of pests-a lot of snails, blackbirds and collared doves, but have been very successful having converted to growing vegetables in their 60s.
This year they have sown a sucession of dwarf french beans, with no problems until their last sowing about the beginning of August. They had a short row with 6 plants, covered against birds and sprinkled with slug pellets. All 6 germinated and had grow to about 6cm with multiple stems (about 4 per plant 3mm diameter) when all were cut off just above soil level, with no residue remaining.
In my experience snail or bird attack could have given total destruction-but there was no evidence of snails and the small area was protected from birds by a plastic cloche cover.
Any suggestion? Cutworms usually leave the plant resdiue to eat later.
regards
David T