A very pleasant observation

[Smiles Jr.]

As many of us have commented this year about having a difficult growing season (this has been one of my worst), I have had almost NO insect invasions.

Early in the harvest time for my bush beans I found a few yellow bugs on the under side of the leaves and a few small holes in the leaves. I pointed this out to my two grand children and showed them how much fun it can be to squish them with their fingers. Not too long and most of the squashed bugs were tossed into the chicken run.

I have picked a few caterpillars off of the tomatoes but not enough to even talk about.

My cabbage looks good.

My Brussel's Sprouts look great.

The peppers are struggling but no bugs.

The voles ate almost all of my young potato shoots and many of my pole bean shoots as they were emerging but only a few bugs.

I have only sprayed a mild solution of dishwashing detergent and water once this year. About 6 weeks ago.

I did struggle with blossom end rot early on with the tomatoes but that has nothing to do with insects. That's more of a soil condition effect.

We have about 4 weeks left in our growing season here - I hope I didn't put the old hex on my garden by mentioning this observation

 

[Carol Dee]

Same problems here. Well at least not he voiles and the japenese beetles seemed less and hornworm was controled early. All in all it was not too bad a year as long as we got water out there whe iot was the driest.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I pretty much agree with you, except ....... Grasshoppers! We went a long time with no rain. The grass turned brown and went into hibernation. Several trees died, including some pretty old ones. The only green things around for the grasshoppers to eat and get some moisture was in my garden and the flowers where I watered. The killed several things and severely damages several others.

I also did not plant any squash this year, hoping the lack of food would reduce the numbers of squash bugs so they would not reproduce much. Maybe this way the numbers will drop so I can at least get a little harvest next year. This hot dry weather sounds perfect for squash bugs.

Blister beetles did hit once and did a number on my chard and kale. One spraying took care of them. But they exploded from practically nothing to the plants almost destroyed in just a few days.

But for your general premise, I did not see many tomato horned worms, the cabbage moth was not much of a problem, I only had to spray for flea beetles once, and most beetles and other pests were pretty much non-existant. But those grasshoppers more than made up for many of them.

 

[vfem]

This year has been over taken with wasps more then anything?! No problems at all with japanese beetles?

How strange this bug year has been. :/

 

[thistlebloom]

As rough a start as you had to the season, I'd say you deserved a bug break Smiles!

 

[Southern Gardener]

Last year was my stink bug problem - this year I had only a couple. I'm hoping it was all the marigolds I planted! I've been saving the seeds from the spent flowers for next year.