Under Seige from Japanese Beetles

Japanese beetles are killing me. Well, actually, they’re not killing me, but they are killing many lives that I hold dear. 

The cherry tree that survived the attack of rust two years ago that killed the other cherry trees is covered in skeletalized leaves. The nectarine tree is covered in beetles boring into the fruit and causing them to shrivel and ooze juice. The grapes are putting up a valiant fight, growing new shiney lime green leaves to replace the ones destroyed by the beetles only to lose those new leaves within days. 

Even the asparagus is covered in the nasty creatures. I’ve never seen them go after asparagus before and if they kill mine I just may hang up my shovel and go buy a condominium. What is there to do?

Invasion of the Stink Bugs (or Spring Preview)

Will someone please tell me when the Invasion of the Stink Bugs will be over? How is it we’ve made it through countless centuries without these nasty little pests reaching our shores, but now they are crawling out of every crevice? The temps around here recently scooted above 50 and it brought out the stink bugs in force.

Last night at 2am I was awoken by a stink bug crawling across my face. Yes. I know. Unbelievably disgusting. It’s amazing I didn’t put an eye out (or wake anyone) with my frantic batting, flinging, shrieking, and shaking. Then I spent the next two hours lying there wide awake leaping out of bed and searching the covers every time I imagined I felt a tiny leg or got one whiff of that lovely stink bug odor. I finally feel asleep for a few hours and when I awoke the first thing I saw was a stink bug crawling across the shade above my pillow. (I suppose my hubby is happy he’s currently on the other side of the planet for work. Otherwise he would have spent the night chasing down the real and imagined stink bugs with me.)

It gets worse. When I brushed my hair I realized the smell of stink bug was coming from me. That bug must have been nesting in my hair half the night before it felt compelled to check out my cheek bones. I’ve washed my hair and the sheets and I still have the willies.

I thought it was over, but when I picked up my water glass a few minutes ago a small gray shield shaped bug was floating in it. Will it never end? I suppose I should be happy that today’s 60 degree temps are about to give way to the high twenties again tomorrow.

Feeling powerless to overcome the tiny beasts, I did what I always do; I searched for answers on the internet. I found these ten ideas for ridding your home of stink bugs on a site called the Columbia Patch.

Here are ten ways to get rid of stink bugs:

1. Use a vacuum cleaner to suck up the bugs - UMD Bulletin. (We actually have a small shop vac designated for stink bugs and after vacuuming them up, empty it in the chicken pens. Chicken’s love stink bugs. Too bad mine aren’t housebroken.)

2. Cut the top of a half gallon or gallon jug, fill it with soapy water and use a piece of cardboard or a napkin to whisk the bugs into the water, which will drown them - UMD Bulletin. (I generally catch the nasty little critters with toilet tissue and flush them down the nearest toilet, but now I’m wondering if since we have a septic tank, I’m just relocating them temporarily.)

3. Seal up cracks around windows and doors with caulk or weather stripping. - UMD Home and Garden Information Center. (Last summer, my husband actually used bright blue painters tape to seal the edges of our screens. This looked horrible, but did seem to help.)

4. Take out window-unit air conditioners; stink bugs can easily get through these. - UMD HGIC. (But what about the summer when you need the a/c? Which is worse – sweating through the night or living with stink bugs in your home?)

5. Plant or move fruit trees and vegetable gardens, especially tomato plants, away from your home to prevent stink bugs from landing on the exterior of your home. - UMD HGIC. (Sorry, this ain’t happening. The gardens and fruit trees were here before the stink bugs.)

6. Squish stink bugs outdoors--the odor warns other stink bugs to flee. - Bayer Advanced insect control. (I had no idea that stink bugs were that organized.)

7. Hang a stink bug trap outside your house to catch them. - UMD Bug Guy, Mike Raupp, YouTube. (I truly believe the stink bug traps are a complete come-on for those of us feeling desperate. Save your money, if something actually worked, we’d all know about it, plus just like Japanese beetle traps it probably attracts as many new stink bugs as it kills the locals.)

8. Hang a damp towel outside your home overnight. In the morning, stink bugs will blanket the towel, and you can use a vacuum or knock them into a jug of soapy water to kill them. - Bayer Advanced (Interesting idea, but the damp towels hanging all over my bathroom and children’s floors have yet to attract a ‘blanket of stink bugs’)

9. Although most insecticides are ineffective against stink bugs, some do work, but the bug must be clearly on the label. Insecticides are never to be used indoors - UMD HGIC (Bad idea all around. Insecticides have always done more harm than good.)

10. Check your attic for holes or gaps and close them up. Stinkbugs often enter through attics - Mike Raupp, UMD Bug Guy, YouTube. (This is the best advice on this list. We did check around and discover some gaps in our crawlspace and filling them did significantly reduce the number of stink bugs getting in.)

So what’s a stink-bug-freaked-out-woman to do? Tonight I’ll scour the room with the bug vacuum and wait until I’m ready to sleep before putting on the clean sheets. Tomorrow, who knows, maybe I’ll start working on house-breaking my chickens. Seriously, I think stink bugs are here to stay and we need to find a good use for them. This little break in the weather has provided a sneak preview of what's coming this spring and if we think the worst is over, as my kids might say, "We're seriously whacked."

The Fly War

I have been waging war with the flies for over a month now. I’m happy to say I have been victorious, but it’s been a long and costly campaign.

Initially, it was only a few flies hovering on the stone porch taking shelter from the sun. They were tiny; in fact, at first I thought they were large gnats. They rarely landed long enough to get a good look.

Apparently, these first flies were the scout flies, because within the week there were swarms of flies on my porch.

To be honest, these flies weren’t harming anyone. They didn’t land, they made no sound, they simply gathered for some kind of fly conference. But I don’t like flies on principle. I associate them with stink and filth and dead things.

Because they were so mild mannered, I simply asked the flies to leave by waving a large 2x2 foot colorful foam floor pad at them, creating a wind that carried them off the porch. It was great to have a use for these interlocking foam pads stacked on our porch. They’d recently been unearthed from our basement floor after ten years of ineffectiveness. They were originally installed to brighten up our tiny, dark basement and make it an inviting place for children to play (and make their mess). Instead, the colorful floor soon became lost amid the boxes, clutter, exercise equipment, and other leftovers of life. Since the new cat has been using the basement as his private litter box, we’ve been motivated to clean out the space. Lots of junk is being passed along per freecycle, and I’ve been swept up in nostalgic hours of picture sorting and journal reading. Needless to say, it’s taking awhile, but – back to the fly battle.

The flies scooted out of the way of the crazy woman with the foam pads and returned as soon as she set down her weapons. Great arm exercise, but not effective in the long term.

It was planting time anyway, so my next move was to put pots of smelly herbs on the porch and plant creeping thyme in the garden surrounding it. The flies were not offended by the odorous effort in the slightest way. In fact, it seemed to attract even more flies to the party. There is the smallest hint of a children’s book in this experience (A dog party? Up on the roof? Do you like my hat? I do not like your hat! Okay, Go, Dog, Go, once committed to memory, is fading with my children’s appreciation for my story-reading voice.)

Failing in my first few battles, I did what all desperate women do when they need a different answer than their common sense or their husband give them – I turned to the internet. Several sites proclaimed the powers of plastic bags filled with water. I thought it was a joke, until I stumbled upon it repeatedly. Apparently suspending plastic bags of water on the porch would repel the flies like magic!

I enlisted my husband’s skeptical help to install hooks on the porch and hang Ziploc bags half full of water. And I waited. The flies scattered during the installation, but soon returned to laugh at my silly bags.

At the Farmer’s Market the next day, I was explaining my fly troubles to a few friends. I told them about the silly plastic bags. One man overheard me and said, “But you have to put pennies in the bags – that’s what makes them work!” He was insistent, and everyone else listened in all seriousness, so I hurried home and added pennies to my bags.

And…..nothing. The flies were not affected in the least and I wondered if this wasn’t just some giant joke set up by a secret society of people trying to see how many idiots they can con in to hanging plastic bags of water and pennies on their porches.

Having not learned my lesson, I turned to the internet once again. This time I read some boards from England, figuring English people have been doing the garden/fly/porch thing much longer than the rest of us. One woman swore by fresh mint. Well, if there’s one thing I have in spades, it’s fresh mint.

I quickly cut down five large bunches and hung them all over my porch on the hooks where the baggies used to be. The flies were a bit frantic from my frenzied action (and maybe the curse words I hurled at them), but soon settled down and accepted the mint like an overly fragrant roommate.

All through this entire adventure, my husband had been quietly suggesting we buy some fly strips. To me there is nothing more ugly and disgusting than a fly strip. There had to be a natural way to chase these flies. Ever helpful, my hubby brought out an electric bug zapper and hung it on the porch. The basic premise of an electric bug zapper is that bugs are attracted to their light. They work best at night. My flies sleep quietly on the ceiling at night and treated the bug zapper as an expensive night light. No dice.

As the number of flies grew, it became necessary to force anyone wanting to enter the house to “run the fly gauntlet” as quickly as possible and slam the door behind them before they could be followed. Obviously, it was only a matter of time before someone was followed.

I’m not naming names, but one of my darling offspring eventually left the kitchen door open and a swirling mass of flies took up residence above my kitchen island. This was the final straw. I lost it. These flies don’t ever land, so I couldn’t even swat them.

I marched to the barn and returned with fly spray. Yes, I am an organic believer. Yes, I publicly lament the use of poisons on plants and pests alike. But, I blindly toss those beliefs aside when it comes to flies and horses. I can’t stand to be around the flies and I can’t stand to see my horses tortured by them. So, I buy an awful toxic concoction that works miracles, dispelling flies from my horses.

In a sad, desperate move I sprayed the toxic fly spray at the flies on the porch and then coated the posts and ceiling. They flies fled.

By the next morning the flies were back and my beloved, exasperated husband was angry at the obvious oil stains from the fly spray on the porch stones. These were no ordinary flies.

This led to an even more desperate move. I went to Wal-Mart. I crept in the garden entrance, where I picked up some cheap basil plants (another internet suggestion) and an “all natural fly trap.” I set the basil plants up on the church pew under the biggest fly swarm and hung the fly trap dead center (directly in front of my front door).

I felt like part of a Monty Python skit, certain the flies were simply laughing, “I scoff at your little trap and your silly plants!”

Deadened by the ordeal of this unholy war, I finally went to Tractor Supply and bought some fly strips. My humiliation was complete when I neglected to read the directions on how to unwind the fly strip and ended up with it affixed to my forearm. I carefully peeled it off (coating my hands in the nasty “scented” glue that doesn’t wash off without the industrial hand soap my husband uses that must be seven kinds of toxic), only to have it stick to itself. Frustrated and littering all kinds of non-motherly vocabulary, I picked it back apart and tried to tie it to the bottom of the empty All-natural Fly Trap. In my flailing efforts at keeping the strip out of my hair, I tore off the small string meant to hang the strip, so I retrieved a piece of bailing twine from the barn and tied what was left of the strip to the fly trap. This looks lovely.

The small feathers are from a little bird that got caught!

The next day – no flies. Well, that’s not completely true. There are plenty of flies, but they are stiff and dead and stuck to the beautiful fly strip that now welcomes all my guests. Like most wars, there is much lost in winning.

Us Versus The Ants; No More Mr. Nice Guy

We’ve been invaded. There are teeny-tiny ants all over my counters and running up and down the cabinets and walls in my kitchen. Now, I’m not afraid of bugs. I lived on the Eastern Shore and I understand what a serious bug problem is, but this has gotten out of hand. In the beginning there were only a handful and I merrily squished them with my pinky finger (told you I’m not freaked out by bugs). But either my careless murders were reported back to the starship and reinforcements have been sent in, or word got out that we have crummy counters. Either way, we have been swarmed by these tiny ants that seem to be in hurry to get somewhere at all times.


This morning I watched them as they scurried over the counter, up the walls, across the cabinets and along the backsplash. They aren’t carrying anything. They aren’t even really stopping to inspect the chunk of hard pretzel that lies ignored on the counter (don’t worry, Mom’ll get that!). So what is there point? And besides the obvious – oh-ants-are-disgusting – are they harming anyone?

I looked on the internet. The consensus seems to be that ants aren’t really going to hurt you, they’re just yucky. Sure they carry a few germs around on their itty-bitty feet, but not any more than you are exposed to floating in the air. One writer even pointed out that ants can be a good thing – cleaning up crumbs you miss. Hmm. I liked that idea until I arrived back in the kitchen to see them coating my cutting board. Enough.

A recent guest to our house advised we go to “the Depot” and buy some serious poison. He even told us what kind worked best and explained that all you need to do is spray the entire outside bottom edge of your house. Right. Ring my house in industrial poison. Got it.

Back to the internet for some green guidance. Once armed, I set to work on the kitchen and by the time the kids were up things looked a little different on the counter. Granted there were still a few ants stumbling around in confused circles (all their regular trade routes had been cluttered with baking soda, chalk, vinegar, and/or lemons. So we’ll see what happens. I’m fairly pleased with the results so far.

As I fixed my lunch, I occasionally grabbed the vinegar spray bottle (my regular house cleaner) to douse unsuspecting ants. My oldest son watched me and chuckled when I told him I’d just firebombed the happy little ant with acid. Lately he’s in to reading horror, so this is right up his ally. I’m going to put him on the job soon.

Thinking about what our well-meaning friend had said about the outer edges of the house, I did a quick perimeter check and sure enough there seemed to be a mass of ants rallying around the porch door. I quick upended a bottle of lemon juice all along that edge and by early afternoon – no ants! I explained to my son that one was more like a nuclear attack. Another chuckle. So much for his peace-loving mama. I feel the same way about the bunny who seems to be dodging my lazy cats and avoiding my not-so-bright dog on its way to eating all of my French filet green beans. Doubt vinegar or lemon juice will do the trick on that one.

Just in case you have an ant problem too, here are some of the suggestions from the internet site Green Eco Services.

I’ve noted the ones I’ve tried and the results.

1. Keep a small spray bottle handy, and spray the ants with a bit of soapy water. (haven’t tried this one, seemed too kind, but in the interest of cleaning up all the vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda scattered all over my kitchen, it will be my final attack)

2. Set out cucumber peels or slices in the kitchen or at the ants’ point of entry. Many ants have a natural aversion to cucumber. Bitter cucumbers work best. (couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice any of my fresh cucumbers that just ripened this week)

3. Leave a few tea bags of mint tea near areas where the ants seem most active. Dry, crushed mint leaves or cloves also work as ant deterrents. (this seems like it might be a good maintenance plan – I’m going to pick some mint today)

4. Trace the ant column back to their point of entry. Set any of the following items at the entry area in a small line, which ants will not cross: cayenne pepper, citrus oil (can be soaked into a piece of string), lemon juice, cinnamon or coffee grounds. (lemon juice seems to really work the best, but I also scattered lemon slices on the counter, in the cabinets, and around the sink)

5. Mix a half teaspoon each of honey, borox, and aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet, etc.), in small bottles. Place bottles on their sides, with lids off, in areas of most ant activity. Ants will carry the bait back to their colonies. Important: use indoors only; must be kept away from pets and children. (don’t own any aspartame and can’t bring myself to support the sale of unhealthy chemicals in any form, so I haven’t tried this one. Plus, there are way too many pets and children roaming the premises that cannot be kept away from)

6. Leave a small, low wattage night light on for a few nights in the area of most ant activity. The change in light can disrupt and discourage their foraging patterns. (yeah, right.)

7. Ants on the deck? Slip a few cut up cloves of garlic between the cracks. (Nice. And then who wants to sit on the deck with me and breath in the sent of rotting garlic?)

8. Liquid peppermint soap, diluted in a squirt bottle will kill them. It will also prevent them from coming back. (where do you buy liquid peppermint soap?? Sounds divine. I’d like to have some for my smelly kids.)

9. Citrasolve works wonderfully! Just mop or wipe with it and spread it around at entry point. ants will die in house, and won’t come back in again. (if the ants die in your house they aren’t going anywhere are they? Haven’t seen this in my stores)

10. Ring your house with used coffee grounds and other acidic natural byproducts. (I think this is what I did by dousing the porch in lemon juice – worked great so far)

11. Spray bottle with vinegar works too. (Yes! And it’s great fun too!)

12. Dr. Bronners peppermint soap (and do what with it exactly?)

13. Try Boric Acid. It’s natural, safe and it works. (I’d try this, but don’t have any on hand)

14. Peppermint oil–a few drops in a spray bottle of water. (same as boric acid)

15. Pouring lemon juice around areas ants frequent (seems to work but is kind of messy and sticky)

16. Baking soda can deter ants – pour a solid line in areas of activity and they won’t cross it. (this seems to be working! Added bonus that it soaks up bad smells – always a good thing)

17. A puree blend of orange peel and water can be applied to an area to discourage ants from crossing. (too much work and mess and more stickiness)

18. Baby powder stopped them dead in their tracks. (no longer have babies or baby powder, but I might be tempted to try the powder just to remember)

19. Use a piece of chalk to draw a line over trails – again, the ants won’t cross it. Chalk also has the advantage of being able to be used on vertical surfaces (I tried this and the ants just laughed)

20. We up here in Alaska work a lot with carpenter ants. I use the original Listerine the brown one. Full strength and we spray it in there tracks and this kills them. I also find that they do not like the peppermint castile soap. (Now carpenter ants are scary – I’d definitely give this a try if that’s what I was dealing with. Those guys are big enough to carry away a small cat!)

21. Several readers have had success with using powdered yeast. The ants usually disappear within one day! (not sure what “powdered” yeast is, but I’m not wasting my good yeast on ants)

Good luck with your own ant attack. Let me know what works!