They're back!

Potato bugs that is. I am really unhappy when  they eat our potato plants. Potatoes are so labour intensive that it is painful to have bugs eat the plant and leave nothing. This year I was determined to keep the potato bugs under control. Here is an adult potato beetle



Did you know the adults live in the soil and come up in the spring/summer to eat your plants and lay eggs? Huh,  so that's where they come from. I guess having so many in previous years wasn't really helping our situation. So how do we get these guys under control? Pick them, ewwww, and drop them in a bucket of soapy water. Not my favourite task but it has to be done if we will have any hope of getting these guys under control. I read that I can improve your harvest by 1/3 if potato bugs don't eat the leaves of your plants Okay, I'm game.

Next is to look for eggs every few days. Potato bugs make it easy to find their eggs. We pick off the leaf that has eggs and toss it into a bucket of soapy water. They are under the leaves and are a bright yellow/orange. I can't remember how many hundred eggs and adults  can lay, but it is a lot. With 6 rows of potatoes, you can imagine how much time it takes but we are seeing good results so i'll keep at it. The kids like o play outside a lot anyway.



We also applied compost tea to increase the health of our plants. I'm make another post about that at another time. It seems to be working. I've never seen our potato plants this big and healthy before.

Do you have potato bugs? What do you do to keep them under control? Someone suggested we should spray the plants with soap and water but i don't want to harm all of the beneficial insects.