citrus leafminer damage

My citrus leaves are curling and have these squiggly lines all over them. I seem to have a case of a citrus leafminer. The little larvae hatch and eat their way through the leaves leaving the squiggle lines apparently.

momma leafminer

I wanna try not to use pesticides, so I'm going to pick off all the infected leaves so i make sure to get all the babies actually eating the leaves and then spray some organic deterrent on them: 1 cup vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon liquid detergent diluted with water at a 40:1 ratio. Not gonna lie, I'll probably make mine a little stronger than that. for a nice description of the citrus leafminer, see here for a pdf by Cali university UCDavis.

I was pruning today and even caught a glimpse of the thing. He looks a bit like an insect frog, its strange.

And as a sidenote: "Citrus leafminer moths are attracted to new flush of citrus trees. Avoid pruning live branches more than once a year, so that the cycles of flushing are uniform and short. Once the leaves harden, the pest will not be able to mine the leaves. Do not prune off leaves damaged by citrus leafminer because undamaged areas of the leaves continue to produce food for the tree. Do not apply nitrogen fertilizer at times of the year when leafminer populations are high and flush growth will be severely damaged" citation

yellow striped armyworm

On an upside, I found one of the caterpillars munching on my plants. The broccoli, onion and tomato have been hit on, so unless this guy was having a veggie buffet, he's got more friends around. I couldn't find him b/c i was looking in the wrong place before: tomatoes instead of onions. Left him out an open location and hopefully the birds find him. Ah, the circle of life.

He is black with a yellow stripe down the side and completely hairless. His name, the dreaded armyworm. Aptly named b/c we are totally at war right now.

Nymphalinae?

Went and found a nifty caterpillar today though that i think is some sort of butterfly. He was munching on a weed. Better than my plants though! I wanna say its Family Nymphalidae, Subfamily: Nymphalinae 


he's kinda awesome looking though.