Sorry for the gross picture.
I didn't want to end tonight without addressing the "bad guys" I mentioned a couple of weeks ago: evil, hideous cucumber beetles (some of 'em swimmin' with the fishes, above); earwigs falling out of everything as well as gnawing the strawberries so that big, scary black beetles could finish making them completely inedible.
What did we do?
- Knocked profane numbers of cucumber beetles into soapy water until the infestation subsided;
- Snatched big black beetles off of strawberries and drowned them with the cuke beetles;
- Cultural controls, e.g., "Angela, stop being lazy" - pulled lots of weeds near where the earwigs were worst, as well as removing the straw from the strawberries (gasp!) because that's where the earwigs were hiding. Of course since they are "June-bearing" it's hard to say whether it has worked - strawberry production has naturally dropped off - but there have been no more big black beetles, and far fewer inedible berries.
No comments:
Post a Comment