Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Those Blasted Bugs

The Japanese beetles have arrived in full force. I've removed many from the bushes this morning and each time I walk out there I get rid of two or three more. This is the first day that I've noticed there's more bugs than usual. There are tons of cucumber beetles, aphids, little cottony-jumpy things and a metallic blue wasp style bug that keeps flying around. There's one crazy spotted cucumber beetle that just won't sit still long enough to catch. I've removed several bunches of random egg sacs as well. Oddly, there are at least four ladybugs out there right now, but they all look a little different. It makes me nervous because I've seen some destructive bugs that look like ladybugs as well, so I don't know if I should leave them or not. They seem to like the pepper plants in particular, but there are no aphids on them and it appears the ladybugs are just sucking on the plants themselves.

I pulled another zucchini, more purple beans, my first few Jalapeno peppers and three more cucumbers which I'm going to take with me to a movie night at a neighbor's house this evening. None of the cucumbers seemed to be bitter. I had a bitter one last night and it sure did teach me to taste them before adding them to anything. The picture is rather poor and the cucumbers are in the wrong direction (I fixed them after the picture), but here's the plate I put together.

Thank you to Granny who sent me a whole packet on canning its processes. I'm going to see about learning how to can or freeze things well.

Lastly, here's a picture of the flowering okra. It's just beautiful, isn't it?


The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

12 comments:

  1. Ribbit, it's so sweet of you to feed the wildlife. There must be a special place in heaven for people like you and EG, who take such good care of God's insect creatures.

    *snicker*

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, the joys of critters.....
    We arrived home last night to find the tent caterpillars had finished stripping all the leaves of the new fruit trees and are now in the process of destroying my berry bushes. Lovely homecoming gifts...
    That okra flower is very pretty.
    Good luck with de-bugging.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The skunks are busy digging up my lawn looking for grubs. I know that many JBs will survive though.

    John

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a yummy platter!!!

    Darn bugs... Maybe you could have a bug squashing contest with EG...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Stupid japanese beetles....they've just about annihilated my grapes. That is a nice photo of the harvest, and also the okra bloom. Certain people in the Pacific Northwest would be crying if they had the bugs that you and I have. Of course, they don't have any squash, either. Ha! I found my first spotted cucumber beetle of the year on my corn the other day, which is really odd. EG likes squishing bugs!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lovely okra flower. I know bugs are your specialty. Try putting them all under a paper cup! Mom

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, I'll feed them alright, Granny. Straight to Wolverine, the Venus flytrap.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh, Sue, that's terrible. It always seems like it's a race against time, doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Skunks? Shoot. Don't take a late jaunt through the garden. It will take a lot of BM's to get that stench off of you.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Toni, EG's more of a man than I am. He squishes. I just knock off into a cup of soapy water. Those spotted cucumber beetles are tough to catch, though.

    EG, I think I've found a neighborhood kid to come squish bugs for me while I'm on vacation. He sure better do a good job or I won't have anything left when I come back.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Don't get me wrong, Momma. There's still cups involved an I still trap them under cups in the house, but today I found a whopper and yes, I trapped him in a cup...between another cup. I'm going to try to get a picture of him later.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Bitter cucumbers are such a bummer. I too, have learned to always taste first! A long time ago, I made a batch of sweet pickles (possibly the only batch I ever made come to think of it...) and the cukes were bitter. Even the brown sugar, vinegar and spices could't cover that up. They are my favorite kind of pickles ever, so luckily, my mom usually sends me some of hers.

    ReplyDelete