Are you certain it's grasshoppers? Have you seen them or just the leaf damage? We have bad grasshoppers too but they've never found their way inside the GH, thank goodness. They are still a long ways from emerging around here, so I haven't seen any yet. If you're certain it's grasshoppers I would try semaspore bait from Planet Natural.

I'm in northeast Kansas. Zip code is above. Insects are a pretty big problem in my backyard. I think it is due to a few factors. This is new construction that was carved out of the wilderness pretty much. There is still a green belt of forest behind my property that I am sure is teeming with insects. I also let my grass grow very high in the backyard at times. I grow it high as it is per organic guidelines, but I also have been lazy at times and skipped the back on mowing days because my yard is quite large. At any rate, my wife insists that the pellets are a factor in our insect issues. At first I attributed her concerns to a lack of knowledge of organic lawn care, but when you think about it, alfalfa would be a pretty darn good meal for a grasshopper. Since it is ground up, wouldn't it be especially conducive to sustaining offspring?

Paula, Of course it is tempting. Quick fixes always are. However, it is better overall to go with whatever hurts the beneficial insects the least...and I know that you know that. : ) Having said that, I would defend to the death anyone's right to use the pesticide of their choice, whether it is organic or synthetic in nature. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. There are times when even the most ardent organic or mostly-organic gardener may find their back against the wall and decide to use a broad-spectrum chemical pesticide in order to save their plants and their crops. That's doubly true during extended drought. It is hard enough to keep a garden productive in a regular year with a regular pest load. Doing so in a very dry year which also is a year with generally high (in some cases, astronomically high), pest levels...well, it can be incredibly hard and sometimes impossibly hard. So, if someone feels the need to use Sevin or Malathion or whatever, I think they should do so after carefully weighing the risks, and I hope that no one here would make them feel like using a chemical solution was wrong or was a mistake or whatever. I'm always going to prefer to garden as organically I as possibly can because that fits in with my desire to garden in a manner that is as sustainable as possible. However, if I felt like the only way I could save my garden from some sort of a major pest was by spraying it with a broad-spectrum pesticide, I just might make the decision to do so. Does that mean my philosophy has changed? No. It just means I find myself dealing with a pest for which organics do not offer a good solution. You have no idea how much I have struggled this year with the idea that I could buy a bottle of bifenthrin or something "just this once" and spray it and wipe out the pests. What keeps me from doing it? The feeling I would be endangering pollinators and beneficials, for one. Still, if I felt I had to do it or risk losing the garden's harvest, I would do it. I also would not feel guilty afterwards. Even though I prefer to raise our veggies, fruits, herbs and flowers without the use of synthetic chemicals, I certainly don't buy only organic food at the grocery store. So, is it logical to hold my home-grown food to a higher standard 100% of the time? No. Sometimes I think I expect too much from myself in that respect. If I buy conventionally-grown strawberries at the grocery store, it is possible that maybe they were sprayed with various fungicides and pesticides multiple times during the life of the plant. So, even if mine were sprayed once with a chemical pesticide or fungicide, wouldn't mine still be much healthier than those raised conventionally? I don't think anyone here should have to feel bad about doing what they have to do to save their garden or a specific crop, or as far as that goes, to save their sanity. If last summer's weather/climate, followed by this summer's weather/climate, is not enough to drive all of us stark raving mad from the frustration of trying to keep our landscapes and gardens pretty and productive, then what would it take? Dawn

Barbara, I'm pretty sure it is the cougar who's been prowling the yard and neighborhood, because all the coyotes have pretty much disappeared too as have some (but not all) of the deer. The rabbits are nervous wrecks and are coming out to eat in late afternoon a couple of hours earlier than usual, instead of waiting for twilight. Aside from me seeing the cougar in the yard, a neighbor has the biggest tracks he's ever seen on his ranch and a lot of us have noticed both wildlife and pets are extremely nervous and antsy and jumpy at night. We've started keats from scratch without a leader before and have had great success, but we keep them penned up for months before we let them roam. I've been around guineas all my life (my uncle raised them) and I love them and I appreciate how wonderful they are at bug control. I just can't see feeding them needlessly to the cougar though. I actually was thinking that the 7 mature ones we had last year, which we eventually combined with the 20 young ones we raised last summer, had gotten to where they roamed a great deal farther than any of the others we've ever had, so think the overly-bold old-timers may have led the younger ones off too far. I hope to train the next bunch to stick around a bit better, but that's a new challenge for next year. I'd say this last batch was wandering twice as far as the previous ones did. I guess all the acres of pastures around us, which are of course full of bugs, are just so tempting. We have an elderly neighbor up the road a couple of miles who has lost many of his guineas too, and he's got a lot more 'civilization' around him than we do, so it is just a horrible year here for predators. At least we haven't lost any of our dogs as some people have. At this point, a coyote hanging around the yard would be almost welcome....because if he felt it was safe, I'd know predators larger than him had moved on elsewhere. So, whether it is the cougar or something else, it has really scared off the skunks, possums and armadilloes for the most part, but I'm certainly not complaining about that either. I don't know the ultimate solution. Luckily, when we have a cougar problem it usually is only for a few months and then we generally don't have them around (as far as we know) for several years. During the previous bad grasshopper year here in the early 2000s, we did have grasshoppers eating our window screens and the cotton rag rugs on the porch. They also ate the peaches and plums right off the trees. This year, at least so far, they are not at all that bad, but it does seem like there's more than most years. I still can carry a couple of chickens from the fenced run to the fenced garden and turn them loose to eat in there, and might do that, but even the 7' tall fence won't keep some animals and predator-type birds from getting the chickens. I'm just tired of all the dead animals. It hasn't been this bad since our first or second year here. This is the only year I've ever had a coyote run into the yard, grab a hen right in front of me, and run off with the poor thing in its mouth. I am very concerned about the dogs and cats. My smallest dog is 60 lbs. so no match for a really big cat but at least the dogs are usually not alone--they have other dogs with them. However, even the largest kitty cat we have would be pretty defenseless if faced with a coyote or cougar. All our dogs and cats sleep inside either the house or predator-proof garage at night and none of them are allowed outside until well after sunrise, and are back inside before sunset. Living as close as we do to the Red River....it is on three sides of us.....we always have had and always will have abundant predators. Most years, we manage to keep the animals safe from them. This is just a worse than average year and I hope things return to normal soon. Dawn