I need some help. I know how to take care of the asparagus beetles, but what do I do with the billions of eggs I see on my ferns? I'm trying a soft surgeon brush to remove them, but asparagus ferns are so delicate. Will insecticidal soap work to kill the eggs? Anyone have a trick for removing them? Thanks!
Asparagus beetle eggs
I know! I'll use my flame weeder and blast them off!
Oh my, now I have to go look them up. Please don't let me have any. Please. I will report back in the light of day.
*snicker*
You got asparagus, you got dem beetles and dem eggs.
That is not very nice madam. I haven't checked yet. Plants are ferning out now, I take it they would be laying eggs now?
Mine were laying eggs a week ago. For some reason, there are less today. I've been pretty religious about knocking the adults into soapy water, but there were tons of eggs. Yesterday I saw a tiny wasp on a stalk, so maybe they're helping me out.
Dang girl, I hate it when you are right. My journey into the backyard kept me there about 30 minutes. Squished lots of beetles less than 50 more than 25 - on a 50ft row, some were procreating so I nipped that in the bud! Didn't find too many eggs though so that is good and I saw a few of the wasps. You can use pyrethrin but maybe that is only for the beetles and larvae.
One more thing to deal with .
I guess I'll just keep killing the adults and brushing off the eggs I do find. I'm always amazed at how a pest finds its host so unerringly.
Some of my spears have curled a bit, too. I think that's a separate problem, sigh.
Got that right! my third spear to break ground had a beetle.
I forget what the curled spears are- have had that a few times.
I had larvae on the ferns and found a friend with a flame weeder. Now the larvae are gone but the adults are back to procreate - more flaming this afternoon. Are they going to keep this up all summer?
I'm very confused. You're flame weeding larvae off the ferns? That seems like a bad idea. Even flame weeding the bed seems scary to me. I stick to brick paths and stone walkways with my flame weeder.
The beetles go through several life cycles. I flick the larvae off the ferns with a finger, and knock the adults into soapy water.
Yep - just the tops of the ferns where they were hanging out. The ferns are about 5-6 foot tall and I singed the top 1/5 where the larvae were. There were no beetles on the lower parts and only larvae on the tops. I will go out later and take a picture. Maybe the fire just scared them away temporarily -LOL.
Ah, I get it. So you lose that part of the fern, but you're also getting rid of the larvae. Only you, Kim! That must feel very satisfying. :)
Well, there's a garden job my 16 yr old son would LOVE.
But would you have any ferns left at all? :)
NO! & ^ )
and I bet a few other things would be experimented on too !!! oh to be a 16 yr old boy with a flame thrower.
So far OK here, only found one more beetle today. Been having a bunch of harlequin bugs elsewhere though.
Here is a picture of my singed asp. ferns.
They look good to me...
Just the top parts are brown/burned the picture isn't too good.
Looks about like the damage my asp beetle larvae do before I catch em and squish em. If they all grow to full size, there are no ferns at all. Three cheers for the flame weeder!