Our garlic patch was looking a little iffy and it turns out it's garlic moths. Bummer. These little dudes lay their eggs in the garlic leaves and stems and they eat their way into the bulbs.
Our plan is to remove the scapes and hope for the best. We have planted in the same bed two years in a row which was a mistake. We got over confident because we thought garlic is a pest-free crop that needs very little attention. Unfortunately, in our part of the world they do have pests.
We will be making a new in-ground bed in the fall to plant next year's garlic. We will likely need to buy new bulbs to plant. We may also try floating row covers to exclude the moths. I thought I bought insect netting last year, but turns out it was frost cover 🤦♀️.
We are not going to spray BK like some suggest. We did try spraying vinegar, but I think cutting away the scapes will be best. Neither of us are huge fans of scapes and we were planning on giving them away, so no major loss there. Hopefully some of the garlic will pull through! We had over 100 bulbs planted.
Here are some links I found useful. Please note I am not endorsing any of the pest control methods listed, just sharing what I found:
https://www.ontario.ca/page/leek-moth-pest-allium-crops
https://seeds.ca/d/?t=cd226e0400004203-a694088
https://onvegetables.com/2023/05/17/leek-moth/
https://www.mofga.org/resources/pest-control/leek-moth/
Here is a photo of the bed:
And photos of the damage they cause/the eggs:
