Hi I'm Tricia an organic gardener. I grow
organically
for healthy and safe food supply, for
clean and sustainable environment,
for an enjoyable and rewarding
experience.
Summer can be full of fun and friends
but it can also be invasion season.
Grasshoppers are rarely a problem in
orchards and gardens
however when they come it can be
disastrous.
Most of the time, grasshoppers stay in
undeveloped land and range land and they
don't cause much of a problem.
But if there's a wet spring, it favors
their populations
and they can descend and destroy a
garden. If you see chewed leaves,
don't immediately assume it's
grasshoppers. Other critters such as June
beetle, snails, earwigs and caterpillar's
cause similar damage
and are controlled differently. If you
suspect
that grasshoppers are doing the damage,
wait until you see them
and you can see them by disturbing area
by either walking mowing or weed eating.
If there's not a huge infestation you
can control them by either hand
picking
or covering the crop with an Agribon
type of row cover.
If grasshopper pressures are heavy
enough they will chew through row covers
so you need to use metal window screens
in that case. It's best to control
grasshoppers sooner rather than later.
Adult grasshoppers are very resistant to
controls.
Grasshoppers hatch in undeveloped
grasslands like this
and then the nymphs move as they eat
all the vegetation that they can. To
prevent grasshoppers from going from the
grassland
into your orchard or garden, plant a hedge
row.
Our Good Bug Blend seed mix
or our hedgerow mix are too great seed
mixes to use for your hedgerow.
Keep your hedgerow lush and green so
that the grasshoppers will stop there
Instead of going into your orchard and
that'll be attracting
the beneficial insects who find the
grasshoppers very tasty.
You can also bait your hedgerow with
products like this Nolo Bait
which is a parasitic protozoa that kills
the grasshopper from the inside out.
Other grasshoppers will eat the dead
infected grasshoppers and become
infected themselves
so the protozoa will spread and control
the populations.
Most insecticides, even organic ones that
are labeled to control grasshoppers,
can be toxic to beneficial insects so
please use them only as a last resort.
One insecticide that's labeled for
grasshoppers
but has a limited bad effect on benneficials and pollinators
is this Safer insecticidal soap. early
control is key.
Don't let the grasshoppers devastate
your garden. Get started on controlling them
before the damage happens; AND, grow
organic for life!
