Beginner Gardening: Japanese Beetles, 1 by dividedsky

dividedsky wrote:
I'm having trouble keeping up with picking them off. Someone suggested putting a hot pepper garlic spray on the plants - the japanese beetles don't like the taste of it. I wanted to test it out and report back, but it's raining this week, so maybe next week will be a better time to test it.

They're primarily attacking my pole beans. And my sunflowers, to some extent. I grappled over whether to just let them have the pole beans, or use the pepper spray and risk them moving to other plants. If I can get a sense from the test that it's working, I might end up buying a bucket of habaneros and spraying everything down! I'll report back if I get this figured out.

They're a horrible insect. The moles are tearing up the yard, but they can't seem to eat enough of the grubs to get them under control. They still show up in large numbers. We saw tons of assassin/wheel bugs hatch, but I'm not sure if they're mature enough at this point to put much of a dent in the japanese beetle population. And the praying mantids - well, I've read I-witness accounts that even they won't eat them. Grrrr!