- Image via Wikipedia
As of yesterday there are 10 fewer Japanese Beetles in this world. I really don’t like killing living things, but these little buggers just had to go. How dare they munch on the cherry leaves, flowers of Echinacea and basil leaves that we want for our own?
How did they meet their end? Soapy water did the trick!
No spraying of pesticides needed.
Just take a small bucket, add a drop of liquid soap and a little water. Tap the buggers into the drink and they won’t be contributing to the next generation of beetle pests.
A plastic milk or water jug makes a great soapy water bug catcher. Cut away the top and front half of the jug leaving the handle intact and about half of the jug that will contain the soapy water.
Every day for the next couple weeks we’ll walk around the gardens removing these beetle pests. We don’t worry that we’ll decimate the beetle population or make them go extinct, because we see plenty of the beetles on tree leaves in the adjacent forest. However, we may have fewer beetles laying their eggs in the lawn that would make up next year’s grubs.
