This worksheet includes two tables which should help you to identify what pest/s are effecting your vegetables.  The first table identifies each of the major vegetable and fruit pests with a picture, name, list of plants attacked, months when active, and a list of treatments to remove this pest.  The second table offers pictures of vegetables that have been attacked by pests, with a list of the pests that cause such problems listed beside the picture. Pest Insects and the damage they cause

Picture Pest Plants attacked When is it active? Symptoms (see table below) Treatment

 

Aphid

Beans, tomatoes, beetroot, brassicas, lettuce

Mid-Spring-mid Autumn

Sucker (see table below)

Neem Spray, pyrethrum, garlic and chilli sprays, natrasoap, yellow card trap
           

 

Scale

Citrus trees

All year

Sucker

White oil
           

 

Whitefly

Most vegetables (look under the leaves)

Mid Spring-mid Autumn and in greenhouses

Sucker

Neem Spray, pyrethrum, garlic and chilli sprays, natrasoap, yellow card trap
           

 

Snail / slug

Seedlings, most fruit and veges

Spring, Summer, Autumn

Chewer

Beer traps, wood ash
           

 

Cabbage white butterfly

Brassicas, radish, mustard, kale, turnip

Spring, Summer, Autumn

Chewer

Dipel, Derris dust

 

Cabbage white butterfly caterpillar

        

 

Mealy bugs

Greenhouse plants

Spring, Autumn, Summer

Sucker

Neem Spray, Pyrethrum, White oil, Natrasoap
           

 

Mites

Beans, fruit trees

Spring-Summer

Sucker

Neem Spray, Pyrethrum, White oil, Natrasoap
           

 

Ants

None, but it protects sucking pests that feed honeydew to the ants.

All year

  

Sticky pads
           

Two pairs of legs per body segment

Millipedes

Chew roots of potted plants

All year

chewer

  

 

  

Damage of plant material close to the surface of damp soil

      
           

 SUCKERS AND CHEWERS

Pest type Symptoms Picture

Sucker:

Aphid, whitefly, mealy bug, mites, Scale

Distortion or curling of leaves

 

 
 

Galls

 
 

Sooty mould

 
 

Premature leaf fall

  
 

Flower distortion

  
 

Leaf blisters

  
     

Chewer: Snail, caterpillars, millipedes

Seedling completely consumed

  
 

Holes in leaves

 
 

Skeletonisation

 
 

Slimey trails (if slug/snail)