Attack of the Potato Beetles

I wrote this a week or so ago, but when I tried to add some pictures, it seemed to disappear, so I didn't post it, but now I found it in the draft file, so I may as well post.  I will do pictures separate.

How does the garden grow? 

Weather has been warm and dry.  No rain for many weeks.  Garden has been growing well.  We have been eating salad greens, lettuce, turnips, spinach, broccoli and peas. 

We planted four cauliflower plants and three out of four bolted before they produced a head.  That is my typical experience with cauliflower. One of the hardest things to grow. 

We ended up with a total of 56 tomato plants.  A few we planted didn't make it, but we picked up some more.  We gave some plants away, but have 56 in the end.  Plants look nice.  I few small green tomatoes on some plants.  We'll see.  If they all produce well, we will have to open a stand or something.

Now to the potato beetles.  We planted a couple of rows of potatoes.  Four varieties.  They have grown really well, with a few exceptions, each hill is big and green.  However, the other evening I noticed some orange colored bugs munching away on some of the leaves.  I thought I recognized them, and so I looked them up and they were what I expected.  The dreaded Colorado potatoe beetle.  They are kind of a famous bug.  They are a little light green bettle that can fly.  They lay eggs on the underside of potato leaves and the eggs hatch into organge colored larvae, which proceed to munch on the plant.  Both the larvae and the adult bugs eat the leaves.  They are famous because they are a pest that has repeatedly developed  resistance to pesticides.  DDT and other pesticides stopped working on them much quicker that people ever thought possible.

The thing that amazes me about this pest, and some others, is how did they find my potatoes?  There are no potatoes growing anywhere for miles away from me in any direction.  These potatoes are in an area of the garden where I have never had potatoes before, so I cannot imagine that the pest was in the soil somewhere.  I have wondered about this before.  The little bugs that specialize in various crops--the worms that attack the tips of sweet corn--the bugs that get on broccoli and cabbage.  They are specialists and I wonder how they find that particular plant in my garden.  One of the mysteries.

Anyway, what did I do about the beetles on my potatoes?  Even if they weren't resistent to most pesticides, we are organic gardeners (mostly, just a few exceptions).  So last evening I used the old fashioned ten finger remedy.  I put on a latex glove and smashed them one by one.  The things I do for my garden.  Completely disgusting, I know.  I only found three adult beetles, but hundreds of larvae.  They had not really done that much damage yet, but there were sure lots of them and at least one or two on almost every plant.

I walked by the plants this morning to see if I could see more bugs, since I am sure that I missed some, but I actually couldn't see any on a quick walk by, and the plants seemed to be happy.  I imagined them thanking me.  I hope they thank me by making some great potatoes!