What's Eating My Garlic?
Garlic repels nearly everything — it's the crop we plant to protect the others. When something does go wrong, the suspect list is short and specific.
The usual suspects
Onion maggots
The signs: Spring plants yellow and wilt; the base of the plant is soft, tunneled, and rotting when pulled.
What it looks like: Small white maggots working the basal plate; gray flies hover over the bed in spring.
What to do: Rotate alliums yearly, remove and trash infested plants immediately, and row-cover spring growth where the fly is established.
Allium leafminer
The signs: Neat vertical rows of white dots down the leaf (the fly's test punctures), then wavy leaves and mined tunnels; stems and bulbs harbor pupae.
What it looks like: A tiny fly, spreading through the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic; larvae are small yellowish maggots in leaves and necks.
What to do: Cover beds during the spring and fall flight windows — timing matters more than any spray for home growers. Destroy infested plants.
Bulb mites
The signs: Stunted patchy growth; harvested bulbs rot in storage from clusters of feeding at the basal plate.
What it looks like: Minute pearly-white globular mites in colonies on roots and basal plates.
What to do: Plant clean seed stock, rotate away from alliums and brassicas, and let beds rest — mites decline without hosts. Cure bulbs hard and dry.
When it's not a pest at all
Yellow leaf tips in early spring usually mean nitrogen hunger or cold snap stress, not pests. White fluffy growth at the base with tiny black dots is white rot — a serious soil fungus; if you see it, don't replant alliums in that bed for years.
Or just point your phone at it
Snap a photo of the leaf, the bug, or the droppings, and Harold — the advisor built into Homestead Paradise — names what he sees, tells you friend or foe, and what he'd do next. Honest when he's unsure, and careful where it counts.
Put Harold's Eyes on it — free 14-day trial