Posted by zog
on June 25, 2009, 1:10 pm
..not sure about your location, but here, this is the worst year ever for japanese beetles. They are attracted to sweetness mostly when in the beetle stage (they grow as grubs in the soil/turf). They are voracious and munch down anything like fruit tree leaves and fruit, grape vines, roses, anything sorta sweet. So we've been trying various home cures, they all mostly suck..BUT... we are now starting to have some pretty good luck using home made mace, or pepper spray. For very small gardens, you can just hand pick them off (they are tenacious grabbers though..) and throw them hard and fast into a thick sudsy bucket of hot water (else they will just fly away unharmed)
To make, we used dried cayenne peppers, broken, put in a pot of water and boiled for five minutes, then turned off and let steep for 30 minutes. This is well strained to get the chunks out and put into a generic spritzer/spray bottle. One day, yesterday, Japanese beetles all over the grape vines, today, none there. We'll see how it goes and I'll do an update further on in the season, also what it might do to any fruit, hopefully it will have washed off by then.
I am thinking if this works good I am going to grow a lot of extra hot peppers next year and make some mass quantities with like an outdoor cooker, or even a large clean steel drum, and use an industrial sprayer and go around the farm and really nail them wherever I see them concentrated, like on the wild blackberries and roses, etc.
Ratio is one cup dried peppers to one gallon water. Obviously don't get this stuff on you...and watch it while it is cooking, don't breathe the steam, etc., it really turns into like home made pepper spray (cheap)..which might also be a security angle for you there.
107
Message Thread:
« Back to thread