Bulb Issues
….but only if you consider grubs in your bulbs to be an issue.
Help!!!!!
(We) dug up all our bulbs to sort and replant. We were having a wonderful time in the cool Felton afternoon. Lo and behold some of the bulbs are squishy. Not all and not most but still. Once I squished it and a poopy looking type stuff came out of one of the bulbs followed by a creature. Once we squeezed the other soft bulbs we saw they all had these grubs in them.
There is not much on the internet about bulbs and grubs. I’ve never seen this before. What do we do? Where are they coming from. These are all planted in a wine barrel not even in the ground.
Do you have any suggestions? Obviously we won’t be putting the grubs we find back in the pot. But how do we prevent this from happening again.
I love that you are there to ask.
Dani
Dani,
In the old days we rolled the bulbs in nasty chemicals that persisted and killed the grubs for a year or two… but those chemicals are now banned with good reason! You can however add some Neem Seed Meal to your planting holes as both a fertilizer and to help keep away the grubs without making your garden a chemical warfare site. You could also spray them with Neem Oil, but that is sort of messy and the crushed seed seems to usually do the job. There are a number of weevils and beetles, as well as gross looking waspy-flies that lay eggs in the soil and the grubs feed on roots and bulbs before pupating and coming up to breed and cause above ground havoc as well. Life is complicated….
Check with your local nursery for a box of Neem Seed Meal (or get it from us next time you are up) and then sprinkle a tablespoon or two around each bulb as replant and it should do the trick.
Hugs,
Hap
