It does look like a click beetle and the larvae form, wireworm, can feed on root crops, including carrots and potatoes. Having said that, I have seen wireworms and click beetles all over my garden ever since I started gardening decades ago and never once have found a carrot or potato that was damaged by them, so I just ignore them and don't worry about them. There are many pests that have the potential to damage crops, but usually they have to exist in significant numbers before they are a big enough problem that you have to worry about controlling them. I've never had click beetles or wire worms in sufficient enough numbers that I even give them a second thought. A garden in which there are no insects and arachnids is a garden that is not a healthy ecosystem, so ignore insects that are not causing significant damage because they have a role to play in your garden's ecosystem, including often serving as a food source for beneficial insects that you want to have in your garden.

borderokie, Unfortunately for those of us who try to raise our gardens as pesticide-free as possible, the alternate methods that we employ instead of spraying pesticides are, indeed, extremely time-consuming. What I have found is that if I can manage to find the time to hand-pick and destroy the beetles when the outbreak first begins, then I will have little to no trouble with them after that. Thus, I might have spent a ridiculous amount of time over the course of a few days hand-picking and drowning the beetles, but I haven't found many since then--maybe 3 or 4. What I have noticed the last few days is that the spined soldier bugs have shown up and now are sitting on top of the potato leaves. They will provide CPB control for me for the remainder of the summer, so my work is done. An alternate method of doing this if your garden doesn't have a naturally-occurring population of spined soldier bugs is to buy some from an insectary and release them. We also have two turtles crawling around in the garden who like to eat CPBs when they can find them, but the turtles are more effective when the plants are smaller and the beetles are down low within their reach. With all the recent rainfall, the potato plants are very tall now and the turtles cannot reach the bugs that are higher up on the plants. For a long time, we could use Colorado Potato Beater's old formulation (and other products with the same active ingredient), which at the time contained a bioinsecticide called Bacillus thuringiensis 'san diego' or 'tenibrionsis'. Unfortunately, those products have become harder to find. Bonide, which makes and sells Colorado Potato Beater changed their product's formulation from the Bt strains to Spinosad. I assume they did this because repeated spraying of the Bt product was leading to Bt-resistant CPBs. History has shown that CPBs develop resistance to or tolerance of commonly-used insecticides so you have to rotate the products you use in order to prevent that from occurring, or to at least slow it down. You still might be able to find one of the Bt products that target CPBs at a farm store or someplace with a great selection of organic pesticides, but all the stores here near me merely carry Bonide's spinosad product. Be sure you find the particular strain of Bt that targets CPBs, because there are other strains available that target other insects, like Bt 'kurstaki' for caterpillars or Bt 'israelensis' for mosquito larvaw. Pyrethrin sprays often work on CPBs too, but they are more toxic to other life forms and I don't want to use them in my garden, especially the formulations that contain PBO. We have cats that spend a lot of their time in the garden with me and pyrethrins can cause nervous system disorders in cats, so I don't use pyrethrins often, and generally only as a last resort. Sometimes I'll spray Take-down Spray directly on a pest, like blister beetles, in the garden, but not when the cats are in the garden with me, and never on a plant the cats adore like catmint, catnip or cat grass. Larry, You could try the net and see if it works. CPBs are smart and do seem to 'dive' off the plants when they see us reaching for them. To get around that, i hold the bowl of soapy water under the leaf with my left hand and then reach for the CPB with my right hand. If the CPB sees my hand approaching and attempts to jump or fall off the leave to get away, it falls right into the bowl of soapy water. Isn't that helpful? I appreciate that those CPBs put themselves right into the bowl of soapy water for me. Dawn

From the Ohio State University: "Because of resistance problems, chemicals alone are no longer adequate for control of Colorado potato beetle. Infestations should be prevented by using appropriate cultural practices." "Hand-picking can effectively control the Colorado potato beetle in small plantings. Inspect plants once or twice per week, remove all larvae and adult beetles, drop them into a container of soapy water, then dispose. Dislodge beetles by lightly beating plants with a broom; hold a snow shovel under plants to catch the dislodged beetles. Eggs can be crushed by hand. A vacuum cleaner can be used to remove beetles from young plants. Lightweight row covers can be placed over plants as a barrier to prevent adult beetles from colonizing the plants." "Several natural enemies of the Colorado potato beetle can help reduce the pest population, but none has yet been found that alone can control this pest. Potato beetle eggs and larvae are preyed on by two kind of stink bugs: the spined soldier bug and the two-spotted stink bug. Ladybird beetles ("ladybugs") feed on eggs of potato beetles, and a parasitic fly and a fungus can attack potato beetles. Ladybird beetles also feed on pollen so they can be attracted to gardens with many pollen-producing plants. Natural enemies may be protected by use of microbial insecticides that are toxic to the Colorado potato beetle but not toxic to the beneficial insects mentioned above." "A relatively new group of insecticides is made from naturally-occurring bacteria that cause certain kinds of insects to become sick and die. One type of bacteria called B.t. or Bacillus thuringiensis, varieties san diego and tenebrionis, has been developed for control of Colorado potato beetle larvae. The bacteria must be eaten by larvae. These products are slower acting than conventional insecticides; larvae may not die until 4 to 5 days after treatment, although they are too sick to feed during that time. B.t. must be applied as a spray when eggs are just starting to hatch. B.t. is more effective at warmer than at cooler temperatures because insects feed faster as temperature increases. An advantage of the B.t. products is that they are not toxic to natural enemies of the potato beetle. Representative brand names and producers: Colorado Potato Beetle Attack (Ringer), B.t. Leaf Beetle Attack (Safer), Colorado Potato Beetle Beater (Bomide), Colorado Potato Beetle Pre-Adult Control (Dragon), M-One and M-Trak (Mycogen)." More info below. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Colorado potato beetle control

I don't know. I didn't mulch with sweetgum leaves or gum balls and didn't have any potato bugs either. Some years they just don't show up, and for me, this was one of those years. Grasshoppers? Tons and tons. They are eating entire tomatoes. I'll find several hoppers on one tomato just chowing down. Luckily, I grow too many tomatoes so they can eat a few and the world won't end. We have had hoppers since around March. I saw them out and about really early. Thought they were bad then. Thought they were really bad in April. Thought they were really, really bad in May. Have been fighting them all along. In June their population began to soar. At this point, I don't think I'm raising veggies, flowers and herbs any more.....I'm raising grasshopper chow and I'm raising a nice crop of grasshoppers. I have never once sprayed a broad-spectrum pesticide in my garden in my entire life, but I am "thisclose" to doing it. Or, I could just abandon the garden to the drought and grasshoppers and throw myself into some other hobby for the rest of the summer. I have a "no potato bug" year about once every 3 or 4 years, and there's no cause-and-effect reason for it that I've ever been able to figure out. In the absence of potato bugs, we did have harlequin bugs, which we've never had before, but it is fairly easy to control them with consistent hand-picking. Dawn