An Organic Gardening Tip
Here’s an organic gardening tip for anyone interested in pest management. As I mentioned in my post just previous to this one, without even knowing it, I had planted a "trap crop" for Japanese beetles. The mystery plant did indeed turn out to be Evening Primrose and the beetles seem to absolutely LOVE it! They have been dining on not only the leaves, but also the flower buds as they are just about to blossom. I checked on the garden this morning and found the flower spikes on these poor plants just covered in beetles, the good part of this being that they are leaving most everything else in the garden almost untouched.
In agriculture on a larger scale a trap crop is used not only to keep pests away from the more valuable plants, but to concentrate the pests in one area where they may more easily by sprayed with insecticide. As I am committed to organic gardening, I’d really prefer to use no pesticides at all, but am considering using a pyrethrin based organic pesticide on the beetles. Even though they are not bothering much except the primroses, I’m beginning to wonder just how many of them will be around next year if I just let them be. One major stumbling block is that now that the plants are trying to flower, spraying them might also take its toll on the bee population. Since many areas of the country have been experiencing unexplained loss of the native bee population, that’s about the last thing I want to do! Guess I’ll just have to save my pennies and make sure to get some parasitic nematodes next Spring to take care of the beetle larvae without doing any harm to the beneficial bugs.