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help a new gardener with beetroot problems?
greenmillie
Posts: 4
Hi there, I'm a fairly new gardener whose only ever grown tomatoes before and have branched out into onions and beetroot I've had a good look on various gardening sites the past week and examined lots of photos but I just don't have the experience yet to diagnose my beetroot problem. All I know is the leaves are being destroyed fast and I'm afraid I'm going to lose the lot. Can anyone help from the photos I've posted? Thank you in advance.
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forgot to mention, there are some tiny bright green spiders on them but I don't know if they are the cause of the problem or are helping!
Hi Greenmillie and welcome
The grubs of leaf mining beetles are doing that - they live between the upper and lower surfaces of the leaves - little blighters.
I'd remove the affected leaves and burn them to stop them spreading. In future you should find that growing beet under a fleece cloche will stop the attacks.
I hope that helps. Good luck.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Read here: http://homeguides.sfgate.com/leaf-problems-beets-29938.html
Oops, Dove responded in the time it took me to investigate
Thank you so much for all the help and the welcome! This does mean I will have to pull nearly all the laves off - is that ok? Wintersong - I will read your link as well to broaden my knowledge
I would take all the badly affected ones off - any that have a small affected area I would tear out the affected bit so that there is still some leaf left to function.
Give the beet a good watering if you're like us and have had a hot and dry few days
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
thanks again, have not found any caterpillars but maybe they're tiny. Hopefully some of my leaf removal will have helped anyway.