Gardening

Sweet Potato FAIL

For the last several weeks I’ve been noticing a very small, really tiny bug in our kitchen around our pantry. I’ve just swept them up or killed them if I saw them walking around, but I get bugs in the kitchen coming from the sink, up through the pipes from the septic tank, so I really just expected it was something along those lines.

Finally as I was cleaning up last night for a visit with family coming to town I decided to Google the bug with a weird description. It had a long snout and a rotund abdomen and went from there. The initial results gave me the idea of weevils. But none of the common pest weevils that were listed looked like it. I gave up for awhile but thought on it while I went upstairs to get ready for bed.

I thought maybe I would put sweet potato and weevil together and see what I came up with. After all, we stored our sweet potatoes in the pantry. Could be…who knew? It was worth a try.

Hah…worst guess ever—worst guess in that I was right! Holy cow!

I didn’t even know sweet potatoes had pests but apparently they do! So, this morning I dug out the paper sacks I kept them in to find them all eaten up from the inside, shriveled up and dried. So much for having some sweet potatoes to get us through until late Fall for our next harvest!

Sweet potato weevil damage

Sweet potato weevil damage

Look at all those holes! Needless to say I threw them all out, bypassing the compost bin. No use in trying to spread that business around my yard for most infestations later.

Sweet potato weevil damage

I keep trying to figure out just how I got them but I guess that some larvae overwintered in there and when the time was right out they came? I don’t know but I guess we’ll either have to eat our next harvest quickly or find a better way to save the potatoes.

Entirely frustrating!

5 Comments

  • chel

    OMG, we had a weevil infestation this week, too! Ours was in the giant bin of birdseed we keep in the garage. We noticed a few around the house, and Tom checked the bin a few times, trying to find the source and then BAM- one day they were just SWARMING in it. So gross!

  • Jamie@Swamped

    Have you had to deal with the Spiral Whiteflies Yet? They have destroyed the Giant Bird of Paradise Plant I have out back, and because there are so many they are now affecting my vegetables too…. I got your question, I am moving to Pine Grove Pennsylvania, right off the AT Trail. 🙂

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