What's eating my peas please?
Busy Bee2
Posts: 1,005
I have never had much luck with peas. First time I did them years ago, simply nothing came up - probably mice who were very good at avoiding the traps. So this year I have been growing them in the greenhouse in toilet rolls, and planting out under netting as there are lots of wood pigeons round here. However, I soon began to notice little serrated bite sized marks on them, and put down some slug pellets (figuring that if there was netting, a bird couldn't eat a dead snail anyway). I caught precisely one small snail. They are not in a part of the garden where I get a lot of snails anyway as there is nowhere much for them to hide. Today, I am planting out (sacrificing) some more lovely healthy pea shoots I have grown in the greenhouse, and am constructing some pea sticks over them, and re-arranging the netting, as it is possible that thieving beaks could have got at the shoots through the nets before. But anyway, here is a picture - like I said, there are bite marks round the edge of the leaves, and holes in the middle. There are a lot of woodlice round there, and ants?? I have flicked the plants to see if flea beetles jump off, but haven't seen any. What is doing this, and what can I do about it?
Thanks in advance - Bee
Posts
I suspect that it's pea/bean weevils - I've never been troubled by them (and neither have my peas
) but I've been told by others that they only attack the lower leaves, so the sooner you can encourage your peas to climb up some sticks and/or netting the better.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Well the sticks have gone in. I thought I might have seen a greenfly on one, but just one, so that doesn't make sense. I will look them up and see what I can do about them Dove - thanks
That looks very like weevily damage Bee. Mine haven't suffered yet this year but it's only a matter of time...
Ah yes, well our radishes are under insect netting too. I have looked up pea weevil, and sure enough, went out and shook the plants and some weevils dropped out - about four, which I attempted to catch and squish. I have been looking up what to do about them and the organic answer seems to be to shake the plant with a glued sheet of paper underneath to save them disappearing into the soil. But although people seem to say they just look unsightly, I have to say they have really made a mess of the peas - some are little more than stumps and I'm not sure they will survive
And even where new leaves have attempted to grow, they have had a go at the shoots 
. That's the irony about Lincolnshire - very safe place to live, unless you are a plant - then it's like the Wild West!! Anyway, I have rearranged the pea row and it now has some netting either side, and I have bent some sticks over in 'croquet hoops' and stuck some other sharper ones in upright. The peas are Kelvedon Wonder which are little ones aren't they? The netting doesn't go up very high, but will stop a pigeon going in sideways, and I presume I can leave the top open for pollination because the pigeons 'don't like it up 'em' (to quote Corporal Jonesey!) Here is a picture - do you think it will be okay? I could put more sticks in, but am continuing to put pea plants in as they germinate in the greenhouse. Thank you for all your help everyone. I don't know if I would bother with peas again, they seem like an awful lot of hard work, and I bet we will come out with about one serving, given there are five of us!!
The pea moth?? The pea moth!!! Oh give me strength. All this for a handful of peas? Between you, me and the gatepost, we are only growing the darned things because last year the foster children planted them at gardening club, and brought a couple home, and I kept saying - 'We'll plant them out as soon as I've finished building the raised beds' and of course, like most things 'chez Bee' that took a lot longer than expected, and by the time the wretched things saw soil, they were dried up, scraggly and dying. So no peas. This year, beds at the ready, I brightly suggested buying some pea seeds. Clearly my mistake was mis-identifying my enemy. The wood pigeons and snails were the 'Harold Hardrada' while the pea weevils are the true William the Conqueror it seems.
Phillipa, maybe mange tout is the future then
We do eat it, when we do a Thai curry - or sometimes a Chinese. Not a lot of mildew round here - too airy and dry!! Well I suppose we can just put it all down to experiment. Bit like the Beechgrove 
I don't think mangetout are less prone to pea moth, you just don't tend to open the pods up to look inside and at the stage you eat mangetout the little sods are too small to see