Wednesday, July 4, 2018

again with the beetles

I am aware of three main super annoying beetle types in my area (I know there are more, I discover more types every time i try to grow something different).

First: lily leaf beetles, which attack Asiatic lilies. I have fought those buggers before and made them rue the day that they met me. Then I moved away, and I no longer had to care for the lilies in the flower bed.

Second: cucumber beetles. I hide my cucumber seedlings inside until the middle of July to wait for them to pass. Or I don't grow cucumbers. I grow squash instead. This year I'm trying squash, although my seedlings are not doing well after transplant this year. They usually grow like gangbusters and I have more zucchini and summer squash than I can eat, even when I'm only growing a few vines. My experiences with the proliferation of squash spurred the creation of my story Operation Wild Thumb in the Dreamspinner anthology Simmer, which you can find here: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/simmer-5594-b
Last year I grew three plants and was getting squash off them well into late October -- multiple squash. I had them piled up on the counter.

Third: this new beast, the asparagus beetle, of which there are two kinds -- the spotted and the common. I found this guide very useful: https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/ORC00000268/PDF I've got both beetles in my garden. At the moment, I'm barely holding my own. I picked FORTY beetles yesterday. I got 8 this morning. I will head out again a little later. They are apparently more active in the later afternoon, so I will show up again with my jar of soapy water.

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