damummis
Attractive To Bees
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2010
- Messages
- 218
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 64
I have dusted my potato crop with plain old flour. It conjest the bugs and they can't move. It washes off after a rain though.
Potato Beetles Have Struck
- Thread starter BetterHensandGardens
- Start date
digitS'
Garden Master
I think that the attraction potato beetles have for eggplant especially, is an argument for diversity in the garden. Certainly, it is an argument against mono-cropping.
There were eggplants in another garden last year. Let's see . . . I had onions on one side of them and zucchini on the other. The zucchini did a little too much crowding but, the potato bugs never found those eggplants.
Where they were hammered by the pests, several miles away in the other garden, the eggplants were right next door to a row of peppers. There were lots of both plants and the bugs could have been on the peppers. Obviously, the peppers were not the preferred food altho' they may have been part of the attraction.
Strangely, the 1st place I always see potato bugs is on wild nightshade - weeds! That is a fairly common weed here, any field that is plowed is likely to have some nightshade. Good ol' Hoe Nightshade and the birds are just delighted to spread the seeds around!
Looking at the potato beetle larva on the nightshade makes me really question the entire idea of a "trap crop." Yeah, I suppose I could go off in the neighbor's sweet corn and pumpkin fields and kill the potato beetles over there but . . . The bug people say that the potato beetle can run thru an entire lifecycle in less than a month! And if the beetles mature over there, guess what? They can fly, over here :/.
Steve
There were eggplants in another garden last year. Let's see . . . I had onions on one side of them and zucchini on the other. The zucchini did a little too much crowding but, the potato bugs never found those eggplants.
Where they were hammered by the pests, several miles away in the other garden, the eggplants were right next door to a row of peppers. There were lots of both plants and the bugs could have been on the peppers. Obviously, the peppers were not the preferred food altho' they may have been part of the attraction.
Strangely, the 1st place I always see potato bugs is on wild nightshade - weeds! That is a fairly common weed here, any field that is plowed is likely to have some nightshade. Good ol' Hoe Nightshade and the birds are just delighted to spread the seeds around!
Looking at the potato beetle larva on the nightshade makes me really question the entire idea of a "trap crop." Yeah, I suppose I could go off in the neighbor's sweet corn and pumpkin fields and kill the potato beetles over there but . . . The bug people say that the potato beetle can run thru an entire lifecycle in less than a month! And if the beetles mature over there, guess what? They can fly, over here :/.
Steve
MotherBrugger
Chillin' In The Garden
Wow! They really made a mess of your poor potatoes! I had tried my hand at potatoes a few years back (actually an entire garden with all kinds of veggies) Between the squirrels and the bugs, I was almost wiped out. I was so dismayed, I had my husband build me an enclosed garden. Now no bugs, no squirrels, no grasshoppers! Yay! That is the only way I've ever been able to control the enormous amount of insects we get down here.
digitS'
Garden Master
Squirrels? I am almost afraid to ask . . . are those tree squirrels after the potatoes?
Some folks on here have real problems with tree squirrels. I don't. But, I keep thinking maybe these Eastern Grey squirrels might not be the bad guys that the Fox squirrels are elsewhere.
Now, if they are ground squirrels, I understand the problems completely.
The tree squirrels get in my compost bucket - seem to enjoy eating the inside of banana peels. And, I've learned not to leave a table cloth on the deck - part of it will end up, up a tree in a squirrel nest! And, there are some other problems but I just don't see them making any forays into the gardens. . . . except to bury walnuts.
I guess this is really off-topic but I'd just like to know: what are these squirrels that even destroy potato plants?
Steve
Some folks on here have real problems with tree squirrels. I don't. But, I keep thinking maybe these Eastern Grey squirrels might not be the bad guys that the Fox squirrels are elsewhere.
Now, if they are ground squirrels, I understand the problems completely.
The tree squirrels get in my compost bucket - seem to enjoy eating the inside of banana peels. And, I've learned not to leave a table cloth on the deck - part of it will end up, up a tree in a squirrel nest! And, there are some other problems but I just don't see them making any forays into the gardens. . . . except to bury walnuts.
I guess this is really off-topic but I'd just like to know: what are these squirrels that even destroy potato plants?
Steve
MotherBrugger
Chillin' In The Garden
Steve, I said (in parentheses) I had grown other veggies too! 
The squirrels didn't mess with the potatoes, the beetles did. But they sure got every single ear of corn, lil devils that they are. And these are the tree squirrels too. We have a bad habit of feeding them, I can't help myself...so the little demon-spawns also decided my veggie garden was fair game. But they have the utmost respect for the screening, so now we're all happy. Squirrels still get their sunflower seed and peanut butter each morning, and I get my vegetable garden 
