Slugs were the most interesting. They were doing a number on my strawberries, and last year devoured my cucumber seedlings in 1 night. I read that you can leave a board on the ground, and they'll crawl under it. Then you simply pick up the board and get rid of the slugs. Since it takes > 1 day for a slug to grow, if you do this daily after a few days you've knocked down the lion's share of the slugs. In dry weather I had no luck, only crickets seemed interested in hiding under the board. After yesterday's rain, however, I went out and saw this on the bottom of the board:
I figured I'd let the circle of life complete, so I brought the board up to the chix. Oddly, they weren't terribly interested. But after I put some scratch on the board, they came racing over.
Later I went back up and almost all the slugs were gone, so I think they got the idea.
The apple trees are getting devoured by tent caterpillars, and today I saw them on the poplars as well. So I busted out the Neem oil, mixed up a gallon and sprayed everything that I could reach.
I did the plants in the garden as well; eggplant, squash/zucchini, pumpkin, potatoes, hot peppers and strawberries. I skipped the onions, garlic and carrots since they seemed immune. So, I either killed the plants, or in a few days when the bugs eat the plants, they'll drop dead. But, it's better than spraying poison.
I'm also going to put Tanglefoot on as a way to keep the trees safe from the caterpillars.
No comments:
Post a Comment