ditnc LOL! I know. I keep trying to improve the compound but any of them that work are fine! I did not see a single cuke beetle in my garden last year after having used the clove oil and tayuya root powder as lures and Sevin as the insecticide the year before. Do you know that I didn't even USE all those disclosing tablets I bought for this project last year! I just didn't have any beetles to try them out on. I want to SEE the dead beetles, though it's great to not have them covering everything in a given year. So I'm hoping this Caserta squash will bring them in this year and I can actually photograph dead cuke beetles with red abdomens. The dye is called a "light-activated insecticide", meaning that the insect must first ingest it and then be exposed to sunlight through the insect's transparent gut. The light excites oxygen molecules inside the insect, which is believed to cause a chemical reaction that kills the insect. It also works to kill Mediterranean fruit flies using the same "lure-dye" lethal cocktail, of course with a different lure. This was discovered in 1928, though until recently, nobody was interested when there were so many insecticides consumers could buy for pennies that would kill every insect around.

"I planted Holy basil and regular basil this spring. The honeybees and several different bees, wasps and butterflies love it. Along with lots of green spiders. Unfortunately, I've only seen the green spiders eat beneficials." Thanks for mentioning the basil, it is another excellent bee plant for the vegetable garden. As for spiders... my observations mirror yours. Spiders are indiscriminate killers - and they are just as likely to kill beneficial insects as harmful ones. They are often listed as "beneficial", but I would rate them neutral at best. I've also had some nasty bites from spiders, and those bites heal slowly, so I don't have a great love for them. Fortunately, the wasp population in my property is very high - including mud daubers. Some of them hunt spiders, and do so very effectively... so the spider population in my garden is very low. Only those which spin webs at night & hide during the day escape the wasps, which suits me just fine. Never tried Murphy's Oil. I've used insecticidal soap, sometimes as part of the following recipe. It was contributed by Jimster several years ago, and is a great starting point for formulating your own insect sprays: INSECTICIDE: A U.S.D.A. formula combining oil and soap is effective in killing soft-bodied insects. Mix 1 cup peanut, safflower, corn, soybean, or sunflower oil with 1 tablespoon liquid dishwashing detergent. To make the spray, use 11/2 teaspoons of the oil-detergent mixture for each cup of water. As I mentioned above, I've tried several different variations of soap spray, sometimes with oil or alcohol. Since soap spray primarily works by blocking insect respiration, I even used sugar as an additive, when I was trying to kill cucumber beetles. Figured that would really clog their spiracles, and it seemed to help. Molasses might be even more effective, provided you can get it to dissolve. The advantage of using insecticidal soap (such as Safers) is that it is potassium based, and will cause less leaf damage. You can also use dish soap or baby shampoo, which is what I normally use. But in stronger concentrations (which may be required, depending upon what pest it will be applied to) there may be some leaf damage if the spray is allowed to remain on the leaves. Provided you are just targeting small areas, that is no big deal... but if spraying young plants, or covering a larger area (such as a squash bug infestation) then the spray should be washed off when it has done its work. Sucking insects die pretty quickly, you could rinse the leaves off after 15 minutes or so. For beetles, you just need to watch to see how effective the spray will be... it's possible a second spraying might be necessary. Beetle larvae are easier to kill than the adults, which can be remarkably resistant to soap spray... they will be temporarily paralyzed, but slowly recover. Cucumber beetles are a great example of this, they are pretty hard to kill. You really need full body coverage when spraying beetles, and a little alcohol in the mix will prevent them from flying away while you give them a good soaking. When trying out a soap spray the first time, observe its effect on the target insect. It's worth mentioning that while soap sprays have little to no no lingering toxic effect, they will kill most insects they are sprayed on. I've used the alcohol spray in my previous post to kill yellowjackets, it will knock them right out of the air. If bees or other beneficials get sprayed, it will kill them too.

GIO I'm going to look into finding the red dye as well. Are you planning on water, clove oil, and the red dye? I'd much rather use that than the Sevin... Yes, I'll be using the red dye, water, clove oil and other containers with the dye and tayuya root powder, which I have. No Sevin. The only place I could find the dental disclosing tablets was online. Your dentist might have some tucked away in a cabinet somewhere -- I'm not sure how common their use is these days, though I think they're used to help children brush thoroughly! But check to be sure the dye is #28 red, since #40 red is used sometimes. Also, about the clove oil. One woman tried it when we were experimenting but apparently put it full-strength and *some* liquid Sevin in a plastic cup. She reported that the next morning the bottom of the cup had melted away! I read later that undiluted clove oil WILL melt plastic. I used styrofoam cups and probably a greater dilution of the clove oil with water and didn't have any problems at all. Good point about the yellow containers. I got excited about making it more effective without considering the consequences to the pollinators. However, is the red dye toxic to the pollinators? The red dye will be consumed only by the insects attracted to the lure it's mixed with, and that's ONLY cuke beetles, not the pollinators or other insects. The reason is that the chemical compound, cucurbitacin , is in the lure that attracts cucumber beetles. It exists in varying degrees in all cucurbits, but the beetles flock to some cucurbit plants in droves and less to others, quite likely because of the strength of the odor. OTOH, pollinators are attracted to the cucurbit flowers, mostly through the kind of light emitted by various colors and probably the nectar in them, and cucurbitacin is of no interest to them. (Thus my reluctance to use anything yellow as a container in hopes of attracting the cuke beetles -- that might indeed attract the pollinators, too.) I hope your garden won't be as infested with cuke beetles this summer as last year! The kind of cucurbits you planted may have been the lure for so many (I didn't check your list against the list in the link), so if you can avoid growing them again, maybe the beetles will be smaller in numbers and it won't be a losing battle to keep the numbers low enough that you can harvest most of what you plant. That's about all we can ask of nature! I have Crenshaw melons, tomatoes, and beans out in the garden right now and haven't seem any insects so far except for flea beetles. So when these pests show up (and I know they will) that's when I'll set out the baited traps. I'll report back occasionally on how well it's working. It would be great if you (and anybody else who tries it) could do that, too. Report success OR failure. People have a tendency to not think about insect problems until they show up in THEIR garden, so it's possible that some who aren't interested in killing every insect on their plants will look for a solution a bit later in the season. I've never had to deal with Japanese beetles, but a zapper over a koi or other pond sounds like a great way to get rid of them! Sounds like you have some fun projects to think about!

I know SD is on the extreme end of "normal"... with regards to the vomiting and attention "getting" technics. But with reading some of your posts seems she might of dipped into abnormal because she does most of the tactics some of you have described. Sweeby ... I am leaning toward your reasoning for attention because in my SM vision it makes sense ... mom has a new BF well bf of 6 months and in the last 9 months she has had some changes visitation change, mom not working, the BF, worries less about mom being alone because mom has the bf, but still worries about mom's bills, because she has to pay daddy(this from the children), Yesterday, I got home from work she was sitting on the couch coloring watching tv very content. Said a few off comments to hubby ... about money .... mommy doesn't have any, its not fair she has to pay you, she shouldn't have to get money from BF to pay you, how come when you need money you always take my moms, (she was with mom for 2 days) mom doesn't have any money she needs to buy groceries, hubby's comments back were basically ... you shouldn't be worried about money, mommy always figures out what to do, I don't have any money either I have to buy groceries and pay bills but you have everything you need... she says I need a new pair of shoes nothing matches my dress. ::shaking head::... I asked her how many pairs of shoes do you have ?? the boys said she has more than most women!!! EEKS I say ... maybe if your parents didn't buy you so many pairs shoes they would have some money. So now its 7:45 and SD starts with a belly ache hubby asks whats going on? she starts bawling... I need to talk to my mom its almost bedtime and I haven't talked to her all day!!!! hubby said you don't need to cry just ask if you can call your mom. She said Can I call my mom? he said sure here's the phone ... 20 minutes later she hands him the phone and heads to bed "night daddy". ::shaking my head again:: IMA ... All my SC do that if I make them "go outside" like I am punishing them ... you might think I was sending them to their rooms ... the way they act, I get home from work and say "its too nice to be inside go out and play" omg they hate me, I am so mean, its too hot out, the list goes on ... I did this april vacation week "made" them go outside and play till lunch time was awful acted like I was pulling out their eyes ... the next day it was pouring out the boys were out playing in the rain and mud.... ::shaking head:: They have gotten into the habit of saying, Can I go to joe schmoes house no I won't be inside we are going to be outside .... ok you can go... Rule: If you are just going to sit in the house you might as well stay home... :)