digitS'
Garden Master
I was doing some weeding yesterday and came across a couple of Colorado Potato Beatles. It would be great if those things had a huge number of predators descending on them! I don't seem to be able to rely on the birds, ladybirds, or anything else!
Nightshade (Solanaceae) is what they want and they start out in my garden on the nightshade weeds. There are other weeds that are in greater number - pigweed, portulaca, etc. Here and there, a nightshade -- usually well-chewed on by a beetle. Then, they deposit those fluorescent orange eggs on the underside of a leaf and move on.
I don't know that there is anything in our garden environment that shows how weed management and insect control can go hand in hand. I mean, leave the weeds and be overrun in a month by hordes of potato bugs?!! We probably all know what the dang things look like while they are beating the bejeebers out of our eggplants and such! Maybe I can get a picture of a tiny, chewed-upon nightshade weed to show what Mom Beetle was living on during the time before her babies turned our gardens into a Tastefest!
Steve
Nightshade (Solanaceae) is what they want and they start out in my garden on the nightshade weeds. There are other weeds that are in greater number - pigweed, portulaca, etc. Here and there, a nightshade -- usually well-chewed on by a beetle. Then, they deposit those fluorescent orange eggs on the underside of a leaf and move on.
I don't know that there is anything in our garden environment that shows how weed management and insect control can go hand in hand. I mean, leave the weeds and be overrun in a month by hordes of potato bugs?!! We probably all know what the dang things look like while they are beating the bejeebers out of our eggplants and such! Maybe I can get a picture of a tiny, chewed-upon nightshade weed to show what Mom Beetle was living on during the time before her babies turned our gardens into a Tastefest!
Steve
