Now's The Time To Battle Beetles!

I know it's only March and spring hasn't arrived quite yet, but the time to strike against Japanese beetles is now....or really soon. The first time each year we usually think of beetles is that day in mid  July when they arrive in hordes to attack our roses and any other living green thing we may have in our gardens. They seem to appear out of nowhere, a living dark cloud of ravenous creatures right out of some 1950's horror movie. That, however, is not the case.

                                      Japanese beetle doing what it does best!
                         (Photo credit: Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station)

As it turns out, they've been in your lawn and garden all along since last summer. The life cycle goes something like this: mom beetle digs tunnels in soil and lays numerous batches of as many as 50 eggs per batch; the eggs hatch and over the course of the next twelve months the beetle-to-be goes through various stages. The entire time they are underground, except when the ground is frozen, they are feeding on live  roots and debris, such as leaves.

                        Japanese beetle grub. (Photo credit Safer Brand organic products.)

The process of feeding begins as soon as the eggs hatch which is why you may see brown patches on your lawn beginning in late August. If you pull up the patches, you will find they come out easily because the roots are gone. Underneath, you may find the grubs which are causing the damage and have the satisfaction of destroying them. Japanese beetle grubs can be found in vegetable and flower gardens, as well as on lawns.

As adults, Japanese beetles will feed on your flowers, your rose bushes, and your vegetable plants. Your war on beetles should be two phased: one phase now and one when they make their appearance over the summer. Phase one is to treat your lawn and garden soil with milky spore, a natural organic product. Other products can be found by searching "beneficial nematodes" which work in a similar manner. When applied, the live spores feed on grubs and multiply themselves in the process. The grubs die after a week or so. When the grubs die, they release more of the spores. It apparently takes up to three years for the treatment to become fully effective, but it may have some immediate impact as well.

                            We had a nearly beetle free summer last year!

Phase two will occur when they adults arrive to feed on your garden plants. You will need to spend time actively killing the adult beetles you find on your plants. This will certainly keep them from reproducing. Some gardeners fill a small bucket with soapy water (liquid dish detergent will do quite well) hand pick the critters off the plants and toss them in the soapy water which kills the beetles. Or, you can purchase a spray bottle of insecticidal soap and just spray the bugs and watch them drop to the ground. You can also make your own insecticidal soap - just buy a cheap spray bottle, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of dish detergent to a quart of water, fill the bottle and use as needed. Do not use a larger amount of soap. Doing so will kill the beetles, but also damage your plant. These soaps are also quite useful on all sorts of soft body garden pests, such as aphids, snails, slugs and more.

One final note:  Beetle traps, which use pheromones to attract beetles are only useful if everyone in your neighborhood is using them. If that is not the case, all you will be doing is attracting beetles from your neighbors' yards into yours and they will probably stop for lunch in your rose garden before the lure attracts them.

So how bad were the Japanese beetles in your yard and garden last year? I'm curious to know since I had so few.  It will help me to know what you experienced.

I hope to see you back here in a few days!