Potato beetles
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.
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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.
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.
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the more you know.
Right?
Oh boy... best of luck staying ahead of them. Good thing you found them this early!
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.
Thanks for the resteem!