Vegetable Pests

[Ottis]

Hi all,


I was hoping someone could help me out. This is my first year with a vegetable garden and although I've had little to put up with so far I'm starting to have problems with two plants. My runner beans have been flowering for a few weeks now but it seems the flowers keep just falling off and I have few beans as a result. Secondly, my brussell sprouts are under attack and I was wondering how to go about it. I've attached two pictures, one being the critters I think that are eating my leaves on the brussell sprouts.

I was going to link them but I guess I can't since I'm new...

So to try and describe the pictures, I was wondering if the flowers are falling off the runner beans because of ants, they appear to be clipped off right below the sepals? And on the brussel sprouts, there are small black looking bugs, real small though, almost like ground pepper.

Thanks

[Eeyore]

Hi Ottis and welcome! I'm going to move your post to the new Fruit & Veggie room where you'll be able to talk to our resident veggie heads!

[Ottis]

Thanks for moving me into the right forum. I'm thinking now the peppery stuff is poop, maybe from some caterpillar? I washed down all the plants today with a garlicy soapy mixture, another site said it works well. I'll keep my fingers crossed until I can supply links to the pictures.

[dj_backq]

Ottis, the attachments did not follow.

[Ottis]

I think I need to be on here for 3 days and have 3 posts before they let me supply links or attachments, I tried.