After the discussion of roly bugs here, I went to the garden yesterday and put more yeast in the bowl. It rained last night, but the bowl did not overflow. There were a wide variety of insects already floating in the bowl, including roly poly and - bellieve it or not - a squash bug. It was the first I had seen of the season, so I took it out for closer inspection. Yup, squash bug. I inspected the squash plants and found a nest of eggs under one leaf. Its gone now! I checked all squash and found one more bug far away on a trombocini squash plant. I squashed him and found no eggs on those plants. Just thinking that by eliminating the first generation of squash bugs, what a difference that could possibly make on the season. I'll be on close watch now and will likely add more bowls of yeast in all areas where there are squash plants.

Rick You are referring to Colorado Potato Beetles. They usually head for potato plants but will also dine on Tomato plants if there aren't enough potatoes around. They have some of the same compounds in the leaves that attract them. I have found that the easiest, albeit perhaps stranges way to get rid of Colarado Beetles is to first of all make sure your potatoes are healthy and growning well making them less attractive then weaker plants (true of all insect invastions) Then you can mulch them with hay or straw and it makes the next steps easier. Also easier digging here in clay country. Early on I watch for the beetles and hand pick the first round checking the underside of the leaves for eggs and smashing those. I usually carry a jar with a small amount of kerosen or gas in it to drop the beetles in. As the plants grow and it becomes harder to cover 150 pounds worth of spud sets I just go out with a broom every three to four days and "sweep" the plants off. As the eggs hatch this knocks they nymph larva off and they usually die before they can get out of the straw and back on the host plant. Other than a few strange looks from passing vehicles, it works like a charm for me. By the way, many around me use any where from 1 to a combination of three chemicals to kill them and they are usually covered up with them the whole season and out there spraying every 3 days. This year I only had to sweep the plants twice because I've been doing it for many years now. To tell you the truth I think the beetles have come to like the bug juice everybody else sprays more than the potato plants.

Effective Organic Control to use is Diatect V. This is from the Natural Gardener website: Protect your new vegetable transplants from trouble. Have you ever had a wonderful day of gardening only to return the next morning to find half your transplants have been cut off at the base? Well, there are two possible culprits, the cutworm or pill bugs (aka rolly-pollies). A cutworm is a caterpillar that lives in the soil and will wrap itself around a new transplant at the base and cut it off. You can either protect the plant with a collar around the base or place a stick next to the stem so the cutworm will wrap around the stick along with the stem and not be able to cut through. Once the plant is established, the cutworm is not affective. The Pill Bug will gnaw at the base of a seedling or a new transplant. Once the seedling or transplant is established, the pill bug will generally leave the plant alone, so you need to be diligent about protection for only a short period of time. First for pill bug control keep the area on the drier side. Water early in the morning. This allows the top part of the soil to dry before night, when the pill bugs are active. Also keep mulch away from plants during this period of time. In the evening dust with Diatect V, diatomaceous earth (D.E.) and pyrethrin, around base of plants. Set up boards, grapefruit halves or banana peels as traps for the pill bugs and scoop them up every morning and dump into soapy water to get the population down. Pill bugs, like many pests, have their place in life as decomposers of dead plants or weak plants, so control is only needed during the early stages of the plant's life. The rest of the time let the pill bugs do their work. Roger and John have been doing tests here at the nursery and have been having great success with the certified organic pesticide Diatect V. It is a mixture of Diatomaceous Earth (D.E.) and pyrethrin. It does not have piperonyl butoxide as many other D.E./ Pyrethrin mixes do. Some of the harder to control bugs that we have success with include four-line bugs, squash bugs, stink bugs, harlequin bugs and other hard-shell bugs. It is best applied with an applicator to really get the dust where the bugs are - on the underside of leaves and the ground where they jump when they are disturbed. We have several different types. RogerÂs and JohnÂs favorites include the pest pistol, which is a simple accordion style pump bottle, and the dustin-mizer which is a hand-crank applicator that electrically charges the dust particle so it is attracted and sticks the plant - a must for large gardens. When you apply this product, you must take care not to inhale the very sharp silica particles of the D.E. Here is a link that might be useful: Organic pest control

I think when certain insect populations explode they become less selective about what they eat and are therefore more destructive. Case in point, I've had an explosion of earwigs this year. Typically they scavenge and munch on aphids and such, doing little harm and actually doing some good. This year I've caught them swarming plants and doing some major leaf damage, similar to that of slugs! I've kept them under control with lots of hand picking at night, applying DE and planting target crops. A target crop being something they will target instead of my primary crops. So far, radishes have served as excellent targets, as they sprout fast, grow like gangbusters and have tasty greens.