Hello,

I have some earth boxes setup along a back fence this season. Have some cukes planted for a few weeks now and just setup a trellis. In the past week I've had the end (top) of each vine cut down to nothing. Also some signs of chewing for one leaf. It is happening only at night and I have searched high and low for any type of beetle, worm, etc. I have cukes growing in another part of the yard and have never had any issues.

I do have some brazen squirrels and an occasional tree rat along the power lines in back by this fence... any chance of something like that being responsible? Also worth noting, I do have milkweed nearby with monarch caterpillars, but have never known them to go to vegetables when their preferred milkweed is nearby...

Any help would be much appreciated and happy to have stumbled across this community. :)

Could be army worms, they come out at night. Also, I understand there is an unusually high number of juvenile lubber grasshoppers out there this year but I don't know if they are night feeders or not. I would spray or dust with BT or Spinosid being conscious of pollinators and spraying when they are not active like early evening.

Oh man... Very possible you may have nailed it with the lubber grasshopper. About a month back I noticed a large amount of juvenile grasshoppers in one area of the yard. Seemed like they had just hatched (or whatever). Just looked up some images and they were indeed lubbers... I have not seen any adults around, but I will keep a closer eye out and dust sparingly as mentioned.

The Lubbers have hatched, not sure they eat at night, but do seem to come out in the late evening hours, they love new leaves.
I had something like that happen last year to brand new coleus plants in my garden, first few nights just nibbles on the leaves, then the whole stems gone, I figured out later it was a family of rats. Guess the babies ate the leaves, then mom took care of the rest.

BucsGardner said: Oh man... Very possible you may have nailed it with the lubber grasshopper. About a month back I noticed a large amount of juvenile grasshoppers in one area of the yard. Seemed like they had just hatched (or whatever). Just looked up some images and they were indeed lubbers... I have not seen any adults around, but I will keep a closer eye out and dust sparingly as mentioned.

Best to kill the Lubbers as nymphs, when you find a newly hatched group like that, spray them with Raid or some kind or ant roach spray, it will kill them all. Once they get bigger, just squish them, I don't think any dust or spray works after they're adults.

@sunkissed - Thank you for the feedback. I actually thought might be rats/mice as well, and am not entirely convinced it is not at this point. Found a couple of bite marks on a baby zucchini the other day...