Aa Update on the Great Cucumber Beetle War

  I have officially won the Cucumber Beetle war this summer and I thought that I would pass on what I have learned.  First of all the beetles follow the scent of the plant so that anything you can do to mask the scent of your yummy garden plants will work. This could be marigolds, fennel, lemon balm, nasturtiums, dill, etc. You can even spray your plants with diluted witch hazel or even perfume. The second consideration is to plant these plants before you plant the garden vegetables. If you take an open garden and put your sweet little seedling in there without any protection it can be eaten to the ground by these buggers overnight. The third consideration I would mention is to grow Butternut squash. It seems to be very hard against the beetles. Good luck!

Tile Strawberry Planters

    A couple of weeks ago someone was throwing out several stacks of tile. They had never been used and contained a varied assortment of colors and sizes. I was sure that I could make something with them. Now that we have finally made it throughout the end of the school year activities and the garden doesn't have anything urgent I had to address these tiles. Despite the many youtube videos demonstrating how easy it is to drill holes in tile- I couldn't seem to do it. So I laid the larger tiles on the flat dirt all the way around a rectangular hydroponics type pond that my husband built last year. I then took my trusty caulk gun and glued four smaller tiles together to make a pot with on open bottom. I then set this on the larger tile. I am hoping that there will be enough drainage if I set it between two of the large tiles. I had enough to make 10 pots. I think that is looks classier than the wooden board we had before for on edge and I have more planting space. They have to dry for 24 hours and then I will fill them with a layer of gravel and potting soil. I will then take my strawberry plants out of the kiddie swimming pool they have been growing in. I think that this will be a huge improvement and it only cost me $3 in caulk.
   Update on the Blue Jays: I am thrilled that they have moved away! Also, the tomato plant eating rabbit hasn't been seen from. Evidently, my 20 pinwheels and mylar balloon bouquet made them all move on. I don't know if my dollar store toy snakes had an effect of not but I am just glass that they are gone. It was such a simple solution that I may never garden without pinwheels again.

Mother Nature is Not Kind

   My garden began with a war with the stripped cucumber beetle quickly followed by rabbit attack. Today I was dive bombed by a pair of Blue Jays. Seriously, first swooping and then a death spiral right towards my head. I brought out an old mylar balloon bouquet left over from a party that the kids had tired of playing with and put it in the pine tree. Those Blue Jays yelled at it for hours. I realize that this is just the first battle of my war with them. Wow. I have only been gardening for a couple weeks and I feel like at every turn I am in a life or death battle. I thought that Mother Nature was supposed to be kind.

A Creepy Story

    My son had a choir concert yesterday. My husband was disappointed that my son did not appear to know all of the words to some of the songs and seemed distracted. Well, it turns out that he saw something white with legs crawling around on the head of the boy in front of him. He didn't know what lice was and had no idea what it could be. They were standing quite close together. I think that this would have distracted me also. He didn't tell me about it until this morning. Even thought it probably didn't do any good he wanted to go take a really hot shower immediately. My 5 year old daughter was listening and exclaimed, "Oh no I hugged him this morning!" We tried to assure her that she was probably fine. We will keep our eyes out and I hope that this isn't the beginning of another pest war. Creepy.

The War Begins

  Now that the Great Stripped Cucumber Beetle seems to be coming to an end a new foe has risen. The Rabbit. Oh I know that the neighborhood rabbits love cabbage, lettuce, carrots, strawberries etc. -but this rabbit walks right by all of those delights to dine on seven of my tiny baby tomato plants still in the seedling tray. It takes a long time to grow I tomato by seed. I had just set the tray outside for the day to keep from getting too leggy. They were clipped off down to the ground. It feels personal. The first shot has been fired.

A Continuation on the War

      I am still victorious in my war against the Stripped Cucumber Beetle. I wanted to share more of what I have learned about his most formidable foe in hopes that it could help someone else out there suffering as I was. I have learned from a very knowledgable Garden Center Employee that the key to winning the battle is to mask the scent of the cucumber and squash plants. Their scent can be masked by anything witch hazel, marigolds, basil, lemon balm, oregano and even Channel #5 if I can afford it. If the beetle can't smell that plant then he can't find it. He doesn't think that Malathion or Sevin work on insects with a shell. I have tried everything and it is working. I don't know what is doing it I am just glad that I haven't lost anymore plants.

The Great Cucumber Beetle War

    In a recent interview with Amy Dacyczyn I read that she is currently recommending 3 activities for Tightwads today. They are:

1) Trash picking
2) Wearing 2nd hand clothes
3) Serious gardening

    Well, I am seriously trying to garden. We have a plot in a community garden. I ordered seed online and grew them by hand in my kitchen window. I took my sweet little unsuspecting plants out into the garden only to be eaten to the ground in one day by my enemy and great nemesis -

            the Stripped Cucumber Beetle. 


    I lost 9 plants in 4 days. Sad. This is a merciless pest that travels in groups. 20- 30 will descend on a small 4 inch plant and eat it down into the roots in a day. Horrible. Here is how the war went.


Day 1- I pulled out the cursed plants and captured a few beetles in an old water bottle. I went to a local Garden Center and asked for advice. I told them that I had only been an organic gardener and have had less and less success each year. I wanted to kill this bug any way known to man. I took the beetle attack personally. You don't grow plants from seed and take it lightly when they are demolished. They recommended Malathion. I followed their directions.

Day 2- More dead plants. The beetles cared not one whit about Malathion. They had continued to munch away all night. I thought that maybe Malathion needed more time. I was concerned that the plants would all be dead by then. I read in several sources that these beetles do not like oregano and lemon balm. I filled my home with meniacal laughter and made my children worry. They said things like, "Your really excited about this aren't you?". Oh yes I was. I have a backyard filled with crazy run away plants of both oregano and lemon balm. I could be a herb farmer with all that I have growing. I dug up two flats worth of these plants- hardly even making a dent in my supply- and planted them out at the community garden. I planted them here there and everywhere. I wanted to make that beetle feel as unwelcome as possible.

Day 3- Despite all of my meniacal laughter it was the beetles who were laughing today. I think that companion planting wasn't close enough to drive away the pests. It seemed to work almost as a road map for the beetles. Perhaps I should have actually made a spray and sprayed the plants or even just lay cut stems around the plant. I don't know if it matters but I did notice a shift from the stripped beetle to the spotted beetle. Anyway my friend was there with Sevin spray and sprayed my plants for me.

Day 4- Discouraged I went to the Hardware store to buy Okra. I thought that this horrible beetle must be one of the reasons squash isn't popular in the south. At least I know Okra will grow here. Of course no one at my house knows how to eat or cook it or really likes it or wants to like it. I didn't care any more I just wanted something to grow. Believe it or not all of the Okra plants were sold out!? The watermelons and cantaloupes taunted me and I bought some more. I went out to the garden and low and behold I discovered that I had won the war!!Yippee! No more dead plants! I even found a few dead beetles and danced upon their grave. My children were again concerned. These beetles really bring out the worse in me. We will see if there are any more battles. They are a formable foe. What finally killed them? Was it the Sevin? Was it all of the above? I don't know but it just rained so the sprays have probably washed off. Let the games begin!

Am I really saving money doing this? Time will only tell.