Pest Control for your Garden - Cutworm

These pests are moths as adults and caterpillars or larvae as young and come out at night they will attack seedlings killing younger plants which in turn will transplant to flowers and vegetables. If you have cutworm you will find plants lying on the soil severed at the stems.

Adult cutworms are moths, one and a half inches across their wingspans, as young these are a grey or brown coloured shiny headed caterpillar with a greasy appearance and live in the soil, the larvae is also grey or brown and a thick consistency living at the roots of your younger seedlings.

Eggs are laid within the soil or the grass and hatch within a week feeding on grass and plants for over a month. Adults emerge in last summer/early autumn and generate at least once a year, sometimes twice.

The best way to control these pets is to shield the steams of your plants with a collar which you can make yourself by cutting small strips of paper and wrapping it around the stems of younger plants above the level of the soil. Weeding around your plants keeps the moths from laying eggs nearby. Spreading diatomaceous soil around young plants also stops cutworm from laying eggs. Digging around the base of any already damaged young plants and applying parasitic nematodes into the soil will kill larvae. Apply this with care.