Prepare to battle those fall bugs now

At the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center's Herb Garden, the sweet alyssum was on its way out and now it's gone. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Sweet alyssum produces a lovely cloud of white blossoms in any flower bed. In the Herb Garden of the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center this summer, it surrounded a beautiful 'Golden' pineapple sage.

That latter sentence is past tense because this morning I pulled out all the alyssum in the container, as well as the two clumps that were growing in a raised bed nearby.

Why yank them out? Well, it's getting to be fall planting season, and soon the FOHC's Vegetable Garden crew will be planting their brassicas -- cool-weather cole crops that include cauliflower, cabbage, kale, turnips and mustard greens. Alyssum also is part of that family.

You know which pest is attracted to brassicas? The bagrada bug, a nasty stink bug that was first seen in Southern California about 2008 and has spread north since.

The alert to the Herb group went out from master gardener/vegetable expert Gail Pothour -- she'd been checking around and under our lush alyssum for offenders. So far she'd only seen harlequin bugs (more about those in a minute) but the concern was there.

So there's no point making the vegetable gardeners' job harder: Out went the alyssum.

Those of us who mostly grow summer vegetables are accustomed to battling aphids, tomato hornworms, spider mites and leaf-footed bugs. But even though the weather's still very warm, fall planting plans have to include prevention of the pests of cool-weather crops.

Bagrada bugs are only 1/4-inch long; the female is larger than the male. (Courtesy UC IPM)