I harvested the first of our garden’s bounty last night, a radish! It was a little on the hot side for my tastes, but Andy said it was good, so I guess that’s good!
On another note, the green beans (and sometimes the laundry that’s been hung on the line) are covered with these bugs.
What are they and what do I do about them?
Congrats on the harvest! It’s exciting. My garden is growing big time too, in case you didn’t see my blog yet. Those are Japanese beetles you have on your veggies there. You have a couple different options when it comes to getting rid of them. I’m going to assume that you, like me, don’t want to put a bunch of poison on your crops. I’ve managed to keep it organic so far. I bought an “insecticidal soap” product at the hardware store that is organic certified and sprayed it on when I noticed that some bugs were getting my brassicas. It worked! And not poison. I’d do that. You also can hand pick them off and kill them in soapy water. You also can buy pheremone traps to get rid of them (but DON”T put it in your garden or you’ll attract a million of them). Good luck!
Yes, Japanese Beetles. We get them here as well. M’wife got rid of them with the following, that she came up with based on the most common “organic” remedies she found:
Mix 1 pint of water with several cloves of garlic and ground red pepper. Blend and strain, transfer to a spray bottle. Add about 1/4 oz of soap. Spray liberally over foliage and flowers.
I don’t believe in “organic.” I’m perfectly fine with irradiating my food, but the government won’t let me keep weapons-grade plutonium around my garden. Damned bleeding-heart Liberals! 😉
Ha. Well when you go to the hardware store and look at insecticides and they say “poison,” why would you put them on your FOOD?
Just shut it and enjoy Brooke’s harvest Andrew!
Nothing a little water can’t wash off. And, besides, there’s all kinds of other stuff in the ground and in run-off that’s just as bad (and actually gets in to the plant…doesn’t just sit on the plant, like most pesticides), if not worse. I’ll be washing the veggies, anyway – may as well protect them while I’m at it.
No reason to not try what works for you guys there. We have the Japanese beetles here but I don’t have any on my garden (though I’ve seen a couple on my deck this year). Was lucky that the soap worked.
Was joking of course when I said to shut it, the gardening thing is alot of experimentation for what works for you there. Hope to see more of your harvest news here. Mine is getting closer and closer to eating!