I’m not giving up this garden without a hell of a fight. The tricky thing about advice is that you get a lot you don’t want, but you get the advice you really need once in a while.
Like family, I don’t think it’s ever really soluble. I was taken aback by the fierce Japanese Beetle assault on my Zinnia garden today. But buoyed by the suggestion of scores of people to draw a quart of water and add some soap and go after the beetles one by one.
I was told they die almost instantly when pulled off a leaf and dropped into this soapy but poisonous substance.
It works. It’s dusk, and most of them have gone off to seep, but a half dozen were still eating my Zinnia leaves, so I plucked them one by one and tossed them into the lethal mix, cursing each one as they went and wishing them eternal damnation.
I know it’s not their fault, they are just beetles, but I am just human in return. Tomorrow, the battle for the Zinnia’s resumes in earnest early in the morning.
I’ll be out there with my bowl of soapy water. Thanks for the advice, and I wish me luck. I’m embarrassed to say I like killing these beetles.
We’ll see how Maria feels about it when she gets home from a Belly Dancing meeting. If she insists on saving spiders, how will she feel about beetles?
That’s what I do with the J beetles here. I’ve had them in the zinnias but they also like roses and hibiscus and linden trees; at least that has been my observation. A friend of mine with chickens feeds the beetles to them; says they love them.
There are sex lure traps you can use for both flies and beetles. They are very, very effective.
You might think about ordering some diatomaceous earth from Amazon, I put it on all of my garden plants leaves. Be sure to buy food grade. That stuff is the shit.
I never heard of that, thanks. I’m also trying natural insect killer
I have fenced in my garden from the deer.
Love to see them.
I have put in hardware cloth in the bottom of my 2 huge raised beds so the rodents didn’t get at the plants.
I am currently caging, in hardware cloth, in 6 foot holes, my new fruit trees before planting them in ground from there pots…that three pack rats have decimated by half since the first of the year….
I have squished , by hand, cucumber beetles that juuuust hatched…in my cucumber pots….
Today, I’ve hit my limit…..something has GOT to give!!
You can also cover them with fine netting or tulle (find in fabric store, which I am sure Maria knows)
This is a BT product called Beetlejus. It is sprayed on and seems to be good at deterring them. The bug is insidious, an import like many chewing bugs with no natural predators. I am thinking pea hens, the noisy ones, would be good. Also milky spore is a long term deterrent but it does not work up here because it is too cold here in the Adirondacks. Just some things to research. The only thing I have been successful at is reducing Red Lily Beetles by hand picking and getting their ucky egg nests. They eat only the Asian tuber lily so they are easier to deal with. Japanese beetles are all over the place. It is kinda discouraging. Good luck
My grandmother used to pay a nickel for every jar of beetles we cleaned out of her garden. We each got a jelly jar of soapy water and we’re set free in the garden. There were always lots of side bets with my siblings to see who got the most and the fastest. I’m not sure I would think it was such fun now, but it is satisfying to kill those dang beetles.