What's Eating My Radishes?
Radishes sprint from seed to salad in a month, which usually outruns trouble — except for two specialists that know the shortcut.
The usual suspects
Flea beetles
The signs: The classic: leaves peppered with dozens of pinholes, seedlings hammered hardest.
What it looks like: Tiny shiny black beetles that vault away when touched — radishes are their favorite brassica.
What to do: Row cover from the moment of sowing is the whole game; by the time plants are rough-leaved, they're past the worst. Roots are unaffected by moderate leaf damage.
Cabbage root maggots
The signs: Plants wilt despite moisture; pulled roots show brown grooves and tunnels, often with small white maggots still working.
What it looks like: Larvae of a spring-flying gray fly that lays at the stem base — radishes are a preferred nursery.
What to do: Cover beds at sowing during spring flights, rotate brassica ground, and pull-and-trash infested roots. Fall sowings often dodge the fly entirely.
Slugs
The signs: Ragged holes in leaves and shallow rasped grooves on root shoulders in damp weather.
What it looks like: Slime trails at dawn confirm.
What to do: Morning watering and a tidy bed edge; radishes are rarely worth baiting for.
When it's not a pest at all
Pithy, hollow, or cracked roots mean heat or delayed harvest — radishes left past their date punish you. All tops and no bulb is crowding or too much nitrogen.
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