Last Updated on April 10, 2024 by Real Men Sow
Your newly planted garden looked great just a few weeks back. Now, the season of mystery has started. Leaves are showing signs of insect infestations, including spots and holes. To find out what causes our plant with holes in leaves, you must view with closeups, which helps us to spot holes and other clues.
These are some seasonal problems that you might discover if you take closeups of leaves in distress or use a magnifying glass.
Main Causes For Plants With Holes In Leaves
Slugs and Earwigs
The most common reason for holes in leaves is caused by slugs, though they are often not seen because they feed at night. Larger slugs will eat leaves from the edges inwards, while smaller slugs can make irregular holes in leaves. Smooth green edges are a hallmark of slug holes.
Earwigs make irregular, ragged chomping patterns. They are a problem for container gardeners as well as those who have raised beds. Earwigs hide in the crevices of bed frames during the day, and then eat tender plant leaves at night. They are fond of basil and new growth of artichokes and peppers.
You can use homemade traps to control earwigs and slugs. Also, be prepared to move containers to stop infestations. Mulch should be delayed if slugs or earwigs are in your garden because it would provide daytime cover for nighttime feeders.
Flea beetles and Diseases (Tomatoes, peeper, and potato)
The pinprick holes that flea beetles leave in the leaves of tomato, pepper, and potato are tiny. However, while aubergine may need protection from a fabric barrier, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes will usually grow back the damage they have sustained.
Tomatoes are more at risk from leaf spots caused by fungi than they are from other diseases. They have juicy leaves hairs, which retain moisture in wet conditions, making them attractive targets for fungal diseases such as early blight. This causes spots to form on lower leaves during early summer. Early blight spots on leaves develop a bulls eye pattern with sporulating centers and rings of dead tissue around them. The leaf tissues that are between the spots become yellow and the entire leaf becomes brown.
Frog-Eye Spots on Chard
Warm summer rains can often lead to the growth of cercospora, which causes holes and spots in the leaves of carrots, celery, beetroot and other crops. There are different cercospora strains that infect these two plant families. Both forms of the fungus cause blister-like patches and crack open at the centers. Infected carrot leaves may develop cercospora-related leaf blight. However, the carrots can continue to grow.
While you cannot stop rain contributing to cercospora outbreaks it is possible to keep your plants trimmed and weeded so they dry between showers. To slow down the spread of the disease, it is possible to remove the oldest leaves and make compost. To remove inoculum, harvest vigorously and encourage new growth.
