We're revisiting a topic that I have done before in the podcast, but because of the

influx of recent questions about it, I figured I would re-cover the topic topic and that would be the leaf minor.

It's a deceptive pest because you as a beginner gardener is you can't really tell that it's a leaf miner

until you know what to look for and thus you can have a hard time

Understanding what to do to save your plant so what are leaf miners it is the larva of fly or moth species.

Both have larva that can be considered to be leaf miners.

Most of them are from the Lepidoptera,

which is the moth family then you've got the

symphyto the soft fly or the diphterra which is a fly family although there are a

couple different exceptions it doesn't really matter the exceptions because what matters is the general life

cycle of this basket of insects and then how to then combat that in the garden, right? So the basic life cycle is the same and it goes as such. An adult

female that has mated will lay her eggs on or sometimes even inside the surface of a plant.

If it's inside, this is done with the female's ovipositor,

which actually pierces through the skin of the leaf

and actually gets the exact between the leaf and actually gets the egg sac between the leaf itself.

Pretty insane that Mother Nature has developed that system for them, for their eggs to be, I suppose,

less detected and more protected.

In a 10 days or less, the eggs will then begin hatching into larva.

This is when they're at their most destructive,

just like a seed, as soon as they've hatched, they need to eat as soon as possible

to start getting larger and feeding and sustaining themselves.

So they will start to tunnel through the leaf tissue and feed on it.

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