Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All,
Not Aquaponics but just in a wicking bed which I got the idea for from here last year!

I have peas, tomatoes, and courgettes growing in two plastic tubs.
The tomato and courgettes are doing well, but the peas are a mixed bag... Courgette leaves have some damage due to a few windy days which battered the leaves, but on the whole looks healthy.

Tomatoes in the tubs are doing much better then those in the ground, leaves look healthy and flowers are starting to come out.

The peas are growing, but more and more of the leaves are disappearing

Photos show the damage.

The peas are in two separate tubs, both are side by side, but peas have tomatoes in between them so not next to each other.

Tubs for ref have pumice and plastic crates at the bottom, with cloth on top followed by a mixture of compost, top soil and manure. overflow pipe is set to roughly where the pumice ends and the soil starts (as an estimate!) and most watering is now via the inlet rather then on the top of the beds...

I'm in the UK so mixed bag weather wise, but had a good few days of sun recently.

Any ideas on what could be doing this? and if so, anything i can use to stop/treat it?

Heat stress & leaf miners.

heat stress is that too much light? So some form of shade will help?

and leaf miners - neem oil seems to be a healthy way to remove them off food based plants? is that ok to spray over different veg?

Any other options to remove them? can I drown them out of the soil?

The heat of summer is the problem (if you can call it a summer ).Peas are cold season plants,you should grow them in late spring or early autum.So light/shade wouldn't help much.

With the plant under stress it becomes vulnerable to pests.You could try neem oil but I think it's just to warm for peas at the moment.

When I had leaf miners on strawberry plants,I left them & they sorted themselves out on their own.But strawberries can tolerate warmth unlike peas.

If you want to try & save them,you could use things like neem oil because its not aquaponics & you don't need to worry about killing fish.

I personally wouldn't put any pesticides on the actual veg,so I can't say.Maybe someone on here can help or try google.

My peas do very well in the winter, and I agree you have a few leaf miners and some other pest. I don't recommend neem oil. Around here we have Dr Earth product line that has a pest control that's made up f stuff like oils from pepper, mint, etc. that kills most insects. I would look for somethin like that in your area.

Your peas don't look too bad, they still have some good color. When it gets too hot for mine they just flat out die from the heat. I grow mine in an aquaponics system, and they do really well in a DWC raft bed, not so great in media. I am also converting to sand beds and I look forward to trying them in the sand this winter.

Thanks for the tips, I've put in a couple of tins of cola in the hope they attack that instead, weather has been hot but not sunny lately so lets see what happens,

In terms of uk winter - I will be removing everything from the beds, is there anything i can do at this point to kill off anything (I'm thinking along the lines of filling the whole tub with water and drowning anything in it?)

the pods seem to have gone on a diet in that they were nice and round before, but now look "boney" where the peas can be seen in the pod as the pod seems to have shrunk around the pods!

Not sure about wintering. With soil I don't think you want to flood it, it may kill beneficial bacteria along with pests. I just don't know. I have heard that spraying the soil with a mist of peroxide kills gnats and the like. But again I can't recommend anything since I don't have the experience with soil.

The snow pea pods should be thin with the peas showing as bumps. They are very tender and sweet at this stage and that's the way they are sold in stores. If they mature longer they will swell but might get stringy and lose flavor. Here is a photo from February. My snow peas have long been dead and removed for summer.

I'm surprised they've lasted this long.Mine were gone in late may.

Wait for the frost to turn up & that will probably sort everything out.

Mine have only just started fruiting - maybe last month or so! They were doing well until this issue appeared. Still seeing pods grow, and a few odd flowers but most of the leaf parts have been munched now so no strength to grow.

I've ordered some bug spray for fruit and veg to try and clear the pests. I'm guessing most of these are from last year that were still in the soil, so may have to bite the bullet and kill them in prep for next year.

It looks like thrips to me, but I'm no expert. They are visible with a magnifying glass, usually on the underside of the leaf. Foliar spray with Dr Earth or something will probably take care of them.