Our backyard extends beyond the area behind our house, it includes the places we frequent, the places we visit, the places where we live life. This blog is all about the things we find in our backyard and beyond.


Monday, August 14, 2006

Lil Bugger

lil-bugger
Every garden must have a bug, but these little buggers can really do some damage. These are called Japanese beetles or more commonly known around here as June bug because they proliferate in June. Since we try not to use any pesticides in our garden, we've managed to cut their numbers down by using beetle traps and by manually removing them from plants daily. This seemed to have worked well this year, they didn't do as much damage as in previous years and we got to enjoy our blooms a little bit longer.

3 comments:

Erin said...

Ah man, they destroyed my Canna lilies this year, no amount of traps and hand picking worked. We ended up resorting to seven dust. We were infested this year!

Anyway, hi from a total stranger, and a fellow north carolinian!

Sidney said...

How do you get them? What do you do with them?

JMom said...

Hi Erin, thanks for visiting. Yep, they decimated our canna last year so we were determined to keep them under control this time. I think we were almost successful. They did some damage, but not as much.

Hi Sidney, I don't know exactly how you get them, but I think they lay their eggs in the ground and emerge as adults. I think there are some pesticides you can use to kill them, but most of them are too toxic to use on vegetable gardens. There are traps like the one we used where baits, with the scent that they are attracted to, lure them and they fall into a collection bag where you can then dispose them when they die. These little buggers are real pests. They can eat up your entire garden in a matter of weeks.