Calundula and Echinacea Pests?

[MaggieStudent]

Hello everyone! I’m enjoying the first year of a new herb/flower bed in the front yard. Two of the plants in this particular bed are calendula and echinacea.

The calendula (Pacific Beauty mix, started from seed) bloomed profusely and I harvested many, many blooms…before these green-brown caterpillar worms started helping themselves. It started with 1 or 2 little eggs on each bud, then a pin-sized hole drilled up into the bud, then the growing worm, who ate the inside, sometime before the bud even opened. I tried manually getting rid of as many of the little varmints as I could, and also used a neem oil/water spray, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. I decided I’d harvested enough and just them them go. When the blooms slowed and stopped, the worms, of course, did as well.

The echinacea (Echinacea Purpurea, also started from seed) is now starting to bloom and is lovely! But recently, I noticed several blooms with green, node-like growths inside the young centers or on the side of the bloom. When I broke them open, there was little brown larvae inside.

So, here I am, appealing to you helpful folks, hoping you have some experience to share on either one or both of these situations. The plants generally appear to be pretty clear of adult insects…with the exception of a variety of different leafhoppers, which seem to hang out on both types of plants. I’d love any ideas! Thank you!

[Greg BoggsStudent]

I had the same thing happening, we sprayed our calendula with Captain Jack’s Dead Bug Spray and after doing that, never had another problem with it this season

[MaggieStudentTopic Author]

Thank you for your reply, Greg! I’ve heard of Captain Jack’s and it’s great to know it works on these pesky little things. How long did you have to wait after spraying in order to start harvesting the blooms again? Thanks again!

[Greg BoggsStudent]

It was kind of before any of them really started blooming a bunch, however the bug spray is listed as organic. I dunno, if I were super concerned I’d just pull off all the calendula blooms and let new ones come in. If I was only somewhat concerned I’d give it a day or two for the sun to get on and sanitize everything

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