Grubs in my garlic??

[christieb]

I went out and pulled up a few "test" garlics, to see if they are ready to come up. Still pretty small, so I think I'll leave most of them to grow longer. But here's my surprise. Every one I pulled up had grubs down there next to the bulb. They are rather large grubs, white, with some black underneath (especially at the end opposite the head). I haven't found them in any of my other garden beds. This is a raised bed, and the garlic is the first crop I planted in it. The strange thing is that a few weeks ago we mulched with some of the hay leftovers (what the cow leaves after she's eaten, and won't eat later). Not long after we put the hay down, we noticed the robins were really digging in that bed. They weren't disturbing the plants, so we didn't worry about it. And now I find the grubs. I suspect that's what the robins were after. But why are they there?? And in the garlic bed, of all things??? We also put some of the hay (not nearly as much) on some onions, in a different bed. There has been very little digging in that bed, and it stopped pretty quickly. So, any thoughts?? I'm not totally new to gardening, but might as well be in this situation. I did do a search, and it seems possible that they are June beetle grubs. Any thoughts on how to get rid of these? And do you think they're responsible for the small size of the garlic bulbs? The ones I dug up are going to the chickens. But I'd rather not dig through the whole garden bed (and I'm sure I wouldn't get them all anyway).

[40shadesofgreen]

Does it look like the grubs are doing any damage to the garlic? Often insects spend part of their life cycle in the soil and will find a little niche to settle in for a while, not necessarily doing any damage.

If the bulbs you lifted look OK, Then I wouldn't worry. A picture would be your best hope of identification help. They could be a beneficial insect or they could be trouble but not all grubs are bad.
 Often things will find a natural balance, as I guess you know if you're not new to gardening.

 I doubt the grubs are responsible for the garlic's small size. I find some years the weather makes big garlic and some years small...

 If you want them gone, when you pull your garlic leave the grubs exposed for your robin (or chickens as you've done).

 Hopefully you will get more ideas from someone with more experience.

Kim

[christieb]

The grubs look like this picture www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://gardenblog.winterthur.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/grub.jpg&imgrefurl=http://gardenblog.winterthur.org/2009/06/29/don%25E2%2580%2599t-panic%25E2%2580%25A6-you%25E2%2580%2599ve-got-grubs/&h=1816&w=2234&sz=3592&tbnid=uc1c97fxTnQdvM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=113&zoom=1&usg=__7KfHxUAKbJpTSjnUmApB7BmJJ1w=&docid=ZzlCKPDOTCmY9M&sa=X&ei=Zh_XUfLaDIWryQGWuoDwDw&ved=0CD8Q9QEwAw&dur=8161

I read up on them and I *think* they're June Beetle grubs, and yes, they seem to be eating some of the garlic (not all of it, though). It seems that they've got a three year cycle, and the majority of their damage, and the visible part of the life cycle, happens every three years. I think this is the third year. The chickens are loving them. They may be eating the roots of the garlic (I've read that in certain stages they do eat roots of plants), or it may just not be a good year for garlic here. Not to mention it was my first time growing garlic, and I may not have prepared the soil well, or any number of things could have gone wrong.

The reason this is so puzzling to me is that, since we have no soil to speak of here (mostly rocks) we have built raised beds and brought in soil and compost to fill them. This bed sat for a year or so before we planted it. Then when I prepared the soil last fall, I noticed nothing like this. So they were either very deep and have worked their way up, or they weren't there last fall. And this bed still seems to be the only one with grubs. I think that's probably a good thing.