Marjoram pest?

[StripyPixieSocks]

Can anyone identify what pest this is eating my Marjoram leaves up and how I can stop it / kill it please?



There's loads of leaves like this and it's getting worse!

[MKG]

What on earth are you doing up and around at this time in the morning?

You have a leaf borer of some description, but I can't find anything specific to marjoram/oregano. At the moment, the only advice I can offer is to remove and BURN the badly infected leaves. If you keep a sharp eye out, you may get away with a quick snip of part of the leaf.

Spraying with an insecticide might help, but I doubt you'd want to eat the marjoram after you'd done that.

Mike

EDIT: I came across a reference to garlic water as a remedy (nothing specific - just a mention). I should imagine that's simply water infused with garlic and sprayed on (after you've removed the infected leaves) - worth a try? Let's face it, you'll probably include garlic in the recipe which includes marjoram anyway

[StripyPixieSocks]

Thanks, I have had a look on the usual search engines and found nothing that looks the same.

Will get the scissors out tomorrow and have a prune of the bad leaves and hope I manage to get rid of the problem.

I thought it might be specific o Marjoram as I have Basil and Lemon Coriander on the same windowsill and that (so far) has none of the same problem!

I'm up all hours of the night, I have depression and insomnia... oh the joys

[Millymollymandy]

Leaf miner - it's quite common on all sorts of leaves. Just pick them off and put them in the bin as I doubt you'll be having a bonfire (or any kind of fire at the moment) in your flat!

[Odsox]

Yes, I agree it's leaf miner.
But you don't necessarily have to pick the leaf off especially if you catch them when they first start.
If you look closely at the leaf you can see it's actually a tunnel in the leaf and at the end of the tunnel is a tiny grub.
A fingernail through it's middle puts paid to it's tunnelling.

[StripyPixieSocks]

I have been picking off the leaves as I see them... there's quite alot of damage so we might be fighting a losing battle against the so and so's but we will just have to see.

Thanks for the help I'll just keep plugging away at the wee beasties!