I was up at my community garden plot a couple of days ago to mow the grass around the plot and to check on the potato plants there. I can assure you that you don't want to find these on your potato plants.
And you really don't want to find this on your potato plants!
Because if you find that, then you're going to find these.
This is the Colorado Potato Beetle, the worst pest on potato plants. The larvae of the potato beetle can strip a potato plant of it's leaves in a matter of a few days if there's a lot of them.
Here's a good article on the potato beetle that I found on the internet.
http://www.potatobeetle.org/overview.html
I went through the plants and picked off the beetles that I found, and that one batch of eggs and squashed them.
Today I went back up to the garden plot to check it again. I found a few small larvae which I squashed between leaves. I really doubt that I got them all, so I just have to keep looking for them every time I go up there.
I saw several daddy long legs spiders on the plants today, which is a good thing because, according to the linked article, they will feed on small potato beetle larvae and the eggs.
As long as the beetles don't eat too much of the leaves, it won't affect the yield of the plants. I'll just have to stay on top of it.
Thanks for stopping by to read my post, eh!
As always, feel free to leave a comment or question if you'd like to.
And remember, keep on steeming on!
Lucky? is it luck? that you have daddy long legs spiders working for you.
I used diatomaceous earth the first sign of those beetles and reapplied it after rains. Three applications seems to have done it. I haven't seen anymore yet this year. This is the first year I have tried this solution, which I much prefer to squishing all those beetles and the larvae.
Does anyone know if this is efficacious in the long run?
The chicken did get into the garden and dug up two small potatoes which looked healthy and tasted very good for dinner that night. She did not give me her report on the number of beetles she found and ate because I picked her up and put her back into her run and she was so insulted she spurned me.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I haven't used diatomaceous earth in the garden so I don't know if it would work long term. I do think that if you can get rid of them before late summer, there won't be any that over-winter in your garden. That would help a lot because they would have to come from somewhere else then.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Amberyooper from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, and someguy123. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you like what we're doing please upvote this comment so we can continue to build the community account that's supporting all members.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
the more you know.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Right?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Oh boy... best of luck staying ahead of them. Good thing you found them this early!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I suppose this may be where the rhyme comes from.
"If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive."
The natural pest control on these Colorado Potato Beetle.
Interesting post thanks. Resteemed.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks for the resteem!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit