Checking out the garden last night I was horrified to see all these little bugs on my potato plants.  At first I thought they were Lady Bugs with a quick glance, but looking closer I realized they were the pesty Colorado Potato Beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) larvae.

I had read about the potato bug in the past while researching garden insects and pests, but this is the first in 3 years growing potatoes that they showed up.  A quick look through google nested some interesting sites for information.  Here are a few:

• Colorado potato beetle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Colorado Potato Beetle: Organic Control Options
• PotatoBeetle.org

I'm not interested and never used pesticides in the garden, so was looking for a natural control method.  From what I've read about many different options, but these make sense to me:

1. Manually go through the garden daily or even twice daily and pick the potato beetls into a container with soap and water.
2. Can use 100% Neem oil as a diluted spray.  Neem oil is a natural control and works by discouraging the potato beetle from feeding, but not directly killing them.
3. Attract or bring in natural biological predators for your garden such as green lacewings, ladybugs, predatory stinkbugs and spiders.
4. Use BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis), which is a naturally occurring bacterial disease.  It's available as a spray solution at your local garden center and is effective in killing potato beetle larvae, but not as effective on adults.  Best to use if you catch early.

Since I only have a small patch of potatoes and am outside daily, I decided to just check a couple times a day and manually pick them off.  Some are in pretty bad shape so I hope I caught them in time.  Would hate to not have fresh garden potatoes this year and into the fall.

I'd love to hear how others go rid of these buggers.  I haven't personally tried the Neem oil or BT, but that would be my next move.  I also practice crop rotation to reduce the chance of recurrence... but I'm also looking into what I can do to the soil to possibly eliminate or reduce the change of them coming back next year in that bed.

This year we planted pole beans and Oregon giant snow peas where we had planted potatoes last year.  It's a small plot, about 15 feet long by 5 feet wide.   I wasn't sure what to do for the beans to climb.  Last year I tried a tee-pee with miserable results.. my own doing.  I didn't stake the tee-pee in the ground properly and we had a rain storm with some heavy gusts just when the pole beans were getting going.  The wind tipped over the tee-pee and we loss pretty much everything as it ripped the plants right out of the ground.  Wasn't going to go through that again ;o)

This year my son saw a picture of a tent style structure with garden netting on it so we decided to build something similar.  Easy to build and fun too... we just went to the back of a dead end street and cut down some alders.   I sharpened the ends and put them firmly into the ground and used screws to hold them together.  We kept it like that for a couple days, then decided to pin it down with twine to keep it steady... didn't want this one blowing over.

We kept it like that until the pole beans and snow peas were about ready to start climbing.  We added some garden netting held down with some zip ties I had laying around.  So far so good... We hope this one keeps up and it's nice because we can easily reach both sides for the pole beans and the snow peas on each end.  The only issue we had is at the beginning, birds would get caught under the net and fight to get out.   We had to help a few out actually, but that doesn't seem to be an issues now that the plants are higher then the bottom of the netting.

OK not that dramatic, but having to go back and face the buggers that stung me was tough..lol  This time though I was prepared.  I had on a big hoodie sweater, my full welding gear and a mosquito mask.  Wasn't getting stung this time... mind you my neighbours were out to watch the fun.  I think I even smelled popcorn for the show.  My son even put on an over sized mosquito jacket to watch.

Not only did I not kill the yellow jacket wasp nest in the potting shed last time, it actually grew!  I had to tear down the underside of the overhang to get in and tear it out.  Sprayed it down first and pulled it down with a garden hoe. 

It also looks like my last attempt worked somewhat as they built a new nest in my tool shed off of a hockey stick.  I finally got rid of both nests and sprayed around the location they built.  So far so good and hope this is the last of them.  I will be building a few wasp traps though... more on that later ;o)

Last fall I forgot to empty and flip one of our water barrels over for the winter.  Once the freezing weather came along, the water froze, expanded and busted a hole in the bottom of the barrel.  Since the hole was at the bottom of the barrel, I didn't notice until the first rain.  I thought it was taking a long time to fill the watering can ;o) 

This was the first water catcher we bought about 4 years ago or maybe more so I didn't want to just throw it out.  I bought some 2 part epoxy, cleaned it up and sealed it back up.  I wasn't sure it was going to hold, but we got a good rain that week and the barrel was full within 15mins and still holding ;o)

This time I won't forget to empty and flip it upside down in the fall during winter preparations.  We don't have a place to store them, so storing them this way outside keeps them safe from freezing.  We throw a couple firewood logs and/or rocks on top to keep them from blowing around.

After a few weeks, the epoxy seems to be holding and all looks good.  No leaking at all!  Now to repair the screen for the lid of the barrel that the dogs took for a Frisbee and chewed up ;o(

I had me a not so happy surprise on Saturday morning...  After working in the garden, I went out to the garden shed to put some stuff away.  As soon as I walked in I saw a wasp flying around inside.  Now I'm not usually afraid of them and figure if you leave them alone, they will do the same.  This one must have flown into the shed and couldn't get out, right?  Well it didn't fly out while I was in there and it started acting aggressive.  Now what happened next should have been taped and submitted to America's Funniest Home Video!  That little wasp first stung me right in the forehead and got me dancing and swatting my way out of there so quick I knocked my glasses off and couldn't see where I was going.  I got stung another time under the arm as well.  My wife was laughing so hard I thought she was going to have the baby right there in the backyard.  I don't think I've moved my 240lbs so fast in my life, well not since University Football anyways.

After the adrenalin wore off, I went back to the scene of the crime to see what happened and where the buggers were coming from.  It seems like they just started building a nest in the upper corner eves of the "potting shed".  Since I use this area daily, have 2 dogs that play in that area as well my my son, I opted for the quick method of spray to remove them.  I know it's not the natural way to dispose of them, but I needed a quick solution.  After a quick foam coating both inside and under the eve, it looks like they are gone and we can use that area again.

One thing I did learn is that wasps should be thought of as beneficial insects.  They prey on other non beneficial insects and usually leave us alone, unless provoked or their nest is disturbed like I did.  This is unfortunate, cause they sometimes nest where we do business and then become a nuisance and hazard.  I found Earth Easy had a pretty good article covering this topic so if anyone else is having this issue, check out their article Natural Wasp Control.  Now that I know better, I'll be keeping an eye out to discourage wasps rather then having to distroy them in the future.  A couple of other good articles I read: How to get rid of Yellow Jackets and How to get rid of Wasps.