Eat The Yard

I am winning neither the battle nor the war against the grasshopper(s) that for several weeks now has chewed the same path around our yard, daily visiting all the major plots of edibles we have growing.  Two months into the warm-season crop many of our key vegetables are still struggling to get established, largely due to the consistent feeding of however many grasshoppers share our space.  The warmer it gets, the more pests there will be, and to be competitive, our plants need the foothold this nibbling denies them.

Several of the control methods I have tried have so far been nonstarters — though it’s hard to see when a deterrent has deterred something because it’s been deterred.  However, companion planting marigolds and cilantro has done little to ward off the grasshopper(s) that feeds regularly.  Dusting vulnerable plants with diatomaceous earth has failed to irritate or lacerate the culprit(s).  And providing a suitable habitat of tall grasses at the margins of our property has not encouraged this particular insect(s) to stay there and chill.

I had a moment of euphoria a few days ago when I returned home to find a grasshopper sitting on our patio, wide open and vulnerable.  I raced out and crushed it, thinking it must have been The One — what other insect would sit so arrogant and exposed?  I relished feeding the remains to the chickens.  All seemed right in the world until the next day revealed the familiar devastation, unchecked.  The nab and squish method is the only tactic that works with certainty, but the grasshopper I got is the only one I’ve seen in the yard.

Because I don’t have the opportunity to lie in wait for hours at a time, nor the visual acumen or reflexes that would make such an effort worthwhile — and because it feels like catching the pest in the act is the best, and only thing left to do — I recruited some predator specialists to hopefully accomplish what I’ve been unable to: kill the bastard(s) that’s been systematically ruining my crops.

I bought a pair of praying mantis egg sacks, or oothecas.

Each sack contains somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 eggs.  It’s a kind of flood-the-zone approach, as many biological controls are.  Most of the nymphs won’t make it to adulthood (which is fine by my wife, who was not too keen on introducing a large flying insect to the property), but the few that do will be voracious predators — a profession for which they are finely built.

I fixed the oothecas to sturdy stalks with hemp string, positioning them a foot or so off the ground on opposite sides of the yard and in the midst of the edibles I most prize.  They have the texture and weight of Styrofoam.

The success of this season’s harvest hinges on getting our resident pest(s) under control.  The grasshopper’s(s’) feeding habits have become more destructive and mean-spirited since I wrote on this last (see “Not biblical, but troubling” posted on April 15).  Old growth in addition to tender new shoots and leaves have become a target.  Pole beans get severed half-way down the vine so whole sections of growth are lost.  Immature squash flowers are gnawed before they can bloom.  Young sprouts are cut clean to the ground.  And the growing tips on most hit plants have been chewed clean off, in some cases repeatedly — which is a real dick move and completely unsustainable.

Hopefully the mantises will bring some balance to the yard.

There’s no Plan C.

Tags: bio-control, pests, summer crop