What's eating my onions ??!!

[SarzWix]

Been to lottie to water my onions/garlic/shallots this evening, and spotted some holes in the leaves of my onions. On closer inspection I realised that large portions had been eaten on some of them... I didn't think slugs or snails chomped onion foliage, so I'm a bit mystified

The onions were spring planted sets, of Hyred (red) and Hercules (brown), both types have damage. They are next to garlic and shallots which have no damage.

Hessayon mentions 'leak moth' which I've never heard of... Anyone?!

[Two_Sheds]

Er, yeah, LEEK moth

[SarzWix]

Hahahaha yeah, LEEK moth...

But what is it? Is that what's eating my onions? How do I get rid of it? Will it ruin my crop?

[Two_Sheds]

I get them too, little buggers. They do come and go though...a later sowing managed to completely avoid them. Check this for more info...
http://www.allotments.fsnet.co.uk/leekmoth.html

[rustylady]

I've got the same problem on overwintered Japanese onions. All of a sudden the foliage is being eaten. Looking at it there appears to be slug or snail slime around the eaten bits. Put some blue pellets down today and will see what happens. Last year all my leeks got eaten by something (I think that was leek moth, but the damage looked different to what I'm seeing now on the onions)

[Flummery]

I've had this sort of damage in the past - still got good crops. Try not worrying quite so much!

We get hung up on perfect looking crops. You can eat less then perfect stuff and life's too short to worry about all of it. Hope I don't sound too flippant but a quantity of wine is making problems recede considerably!

[SarzWix]

We get hung up on perfect looking crops. You can eat less then perfect stuff and life's too short to worry about all of it. Hope I don't sound too flippant but a quantity of wine is making problems recede considerably!

I don't mind dodgy lookin veg, s'long as they're still edible...