Plow and Disk?

[DFB]

Hi Bird,

I'll go off topic and take this time to catch up with ya. Wow, hard to believe its almost over for you already. We're just getting there. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif Been pickin strawberries and all the plants are in flower and the in-law's farmstand opens Mon. with beet greens, zuchinni and yellow squash. Corn in couple of more weeks. The weather been great, hot and just enough of rain. I hope it stays that way for a while. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif Live trapped 4 woodchucks and the dog chased off a fifth one last week, but they just about wiped out the pumpkins plants first./w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif

I gotta tell ya that stoney VT soil sure did a number on my Bushog tiller,/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif bent both skid adjusters and broke a tine. Won't even mention the sheetmetal. Works great though, Full depth no problem. Probably should use a plow too. See what I can turn up first. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif


DFB

 

[Bird]

DFB, this has been a very peculiar year for the garden; started the year too wet, so it was late getting planted. We've always had too much zucchini, so I planted less this year. It started looking great, produced about 6 zucchini, then all died for reasons unknown (while the yellow squash right next to it continued just fine). Had an excellent crop of green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, and cabbage until the grasshoppers destroyed them all. Bell peppers did great; grasshoppers have almost finished them off this past week. Had a good crop of sweet corn; picked the last of it the 17th. Black-eyed peas started great, but only got enough for two meals before the grasshoppers destroyed them. They even ate the tops off the onions and potato plants. We had all the potatoes and onions we needed, but they were much smaller than usual, and I harvested them all the 17th and 18th. Pumpkin vines just seemed to die overnight about a week ago for reasons unknown. Got lots of cantaloupe I need to pick today; still hope for a few watermelons. Blackberries were through about June 3, and the last of the plums will come off the trees today. Still have lots of tomatoes and okra, even though the plants are covered with grasshoppers. A neighbor stopped by a few days ago and told me he'd heard somewhere that this was the third year of a seven year cycle for grasshoppers. I hate to think of 4 more years of them. Anyone want to buy a grasshopper farm? Guaranteed to produce millions./w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif

And your rocks sound like they're hard on tillers. My Bush Hog tiller is 6 years old and I've never broken or bent anything on it yet.

Bird

 

[Anonymous Poster]

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[Alan L.]

Bird - have you tried sprinkling flour over your plants? I heard it gummed up their mouths, but I haven't actually tried it. We have grasshoppers too. I've been catching them and throwing them into our newly stocked tank (pond). Not putting much of a dent in the infestation , but very satisfying to see them get ate. Unfortunately those big 2" rascals are too big for the fish to eat yet, so I try to catch the half-inch ones.

I'd like to come up with a grasshopper trap. Then I would have plenty of protein to feed the bass.

I supposed a grasshopper trap could be a net basket with some of your favorite plants. The holes in the net or mesh would be small enough to let the small grasshoppers in, then when they eat the plants and grow they would be TOO BIG to get out!!!

Alan L., TX

 

[Bird]

Alan, a grasshopper trap, huh? That's a novel idea. I think I'd have enough to feed all the fish in the 5,000 acre lake across the road./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bird

 

[DFB]

Hey guys, can't help out on ways to trap the grasshoppers ( just woodchucks) /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif but there is a product to help control them Nolo Bait. At the min application of 1 lb per acre it seems reasonable enough.

Can't control the weather, but after all the effort involved in having a garden to lose the fruits of your labor to pests or varmits is disappointing to say the least.

DFB

 

[Bird]

Yeah, DFB, I'd heard of the Nolo Bait before, along with several other things that supposedly work to kill the ones there at the time, but then a new batch arrives in a day or two to replace them. I didn't read the entire web site you listed, but as you said a minimum application of one pound per acre. Then did you notice that it said if you have more than 8 grasshoppers per square yard that some won't get any of the bait? How about 80 per square yard in what's left of my garden?/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

But I do appreciate your efforts and the information.

Bird

 

[jinman]

Bird, I listen to Howard Garrett on WBAP radio 820 and he also has a website http://www.dirtdoctor.com and he says Nolo Bait is only good very early in the season before the grasshoppers are mature. When they are mature, he says that about the only good way to kill them is to attract lots of birds to feed on them (no pun intended). My brother told me he had about 80 on one tomato plant. I don't have many, but I'm about seventy miles from him and I feed the birds, so I'm sure they help keep them down. Anyhow, just wanted to make sure you realized that Nolo Bait only works early in a grasshopper's life. The old tough chompers are hard to control /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif.

JimI

 

[Bird]

JimI, I'd heard that, too. And you brought up another point; birds. A friend of mine in Dallas and his wife are avid bird watchers with feeders, nest boxes, etc. And he and I were just discussing (via e-mail) the fact that we have so few birds this year. We have a bird feeder and bird bath in our own front yard and had lots of birds very early this year, but a very noticeable shortage of them the last month or two. I still have no idea why.

Bird

 

[DFB]

Bird,

That's a lot of pests for sure. Sounds like a plague of biblical proportions and too late and too expensive to benefit from any long term control program. Kinda like spraying for the blight on our tomatoes. If you wait till it happens before you spray it's really to late to control it. We begin to apply it from the point the plants are first set out. So what do you do? Wait it out till cold weather kills 'em? /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif I wonder if using floating row cover would help to at least keep them off the garden plants. Anyway sounds like an interesting product when properly applied. Never used it and hope I never have to. GOOD LUCK

DFB