Organic pest control

[skates4marty]

My A. tuberosa is plagued by milkweed leaf beetle
(http://bugguide.net/node/view/6165 )

My solution: I pay my son to pick them off: a nickle for each larva (they are easy since they don't move), a dime for an adult, and a quarter for a mating pair. He just collected for the season: $11 plus change.

So next season, see if you can find a neighbor kid whose interest in earning money is greater than their squeamishness. They can squish them, or drop them in a jar. I figure the larva has so little mobility that pitching them into the street works too.

[summerluver]

I plant pumpkins back in my milkweed patch because it seems to be something the deer and bunnies won't eat. This year, we had a ridiculous infestation of squash bugs. I looked them up because even though my pumpkin vines have died, I seem to be getting more and more bugs. They were even chewing on the pumpkins! Over the weekend, we found them coming into the house too to escape the cold, (that discovery cued by the screams of my daughter from the bathroom!) I found out that they continue to lay eggs and reproduce into the fall, and will overwinter in the leaf litter, with the eggs hatching in the spring. Since they also gnawed up my squash in my veggie garden, I realized that they need to go now! I went two days in a row with my disposable latex gloves and container of soapy water, and just flicked away. There are at least a hundred out there. Unfortunately, I also found a chrysalis that I must have missed on the fence, which an assasin bug was gorging on. I felt so bad I had missed it in my many searches, and that it had somehow survived on that sick milkweed to end up as his dinner. He and his little friend I found one leaf below also wound up in the soup. My last Monarch eclosed this morning. I imagine she's the sister of that little chrysalis.

[Mona Miller]

Those stink bugs are here, too. I had two in the house today. Last year, there were many of them. Now, this year more. My friend in McLean, VA has them, too. I told her they were after our caterpillars. I think they can smell them.