What's Eating My Lettuce?
Lettuce is soft, shallow-rooted, and delicious — the path of least resistance for everything from slugs to rabbits. Damage patterns split cleanly by size of bite.
The usual suspects
Slugs and snails
The signs: Smooth-edged, irregular holes and shredded soft leaf tissue, with silvery trails on leaves and soil at dawn.
What it looks like: Night feeders hiding under outer leaves, boards, and mulch by day.
What to do: Water mornings, set beer traps or hiding boards to collect from, use iron phosphate bait around beds — it's safe for pets and poultry.
Aphids
The signs: Puckered, curled leaves with colonies deep in the crown; heads may harbor them layers in.
What it looks like: Soft green or pink insects, often several sizes in one cluster.
What to do: Water-blast between rows, soap-spray young plants, and favor loose-leaf types in aphid-heavy gardens for easier washing.
Cutworms
The signs: Seedlings mowed at soil level overnight, sometimes with the tops left lying there.
What it looks like: C-curled gray-brown larvae an inch down near the casualties.
What to do: Collars on transplants; a soil scratch-and-squish patrol after each loss.
Rabbits and groundhogs
The signs: Whole plants cropped to stubs with clean 45-degree bites, often row by row — far too much volume for any insect.
What it looks like: Rabbit damage is neat and low; groundhogs flatten and demolish.
What to do: A two-foot chicken-wire fence with the bottom flared and buried stops rabbits; groundhogs need taller fencing with a buried skirt.
Earwigs
The signs: Ragged interior holes plus tattered leaf edges, feeding overnight, no slime.
What it looks like: Slender brown insects with rear pincers, hiding in moist crevices by day.
What to do: Trap in rolled damp newspaper or oil-baited cans set at soil level, then shake into soapy water each morning.
When it's not a pest at all
Brown, dying leaf edges on otherwise clean plants are tipburn — a calcium-and-heat hiccup, common right before maturity. Bitter leaves mean bolting has begun; blame the thermometer, not a bug.
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