Yesterday morning I finished planting everything about 10:30. I went in the house to clean up and get lunch ready for Vince. I knew the grasshoppers were still around and planned to check the seedlings this morning to see how they were doing and decide if I needed to cover them.
After lunch . . right after lunch . . I went out to cut a few more pods of okra to have enough to fill the three bags. Three of my cauliflower and all 10 of my cabbage plants had already been completely eaten by the grasshoppers.
Row Covers
The row coverings were necessary! I strung up the soaker hose for the cauliflower and covered it. The sides and ends are all pinned down but this morning I’ll go out and rake dirt over the edges to keep the grasshoppers from finding spots to get under the covering and eat the plants.
No one should have to deal with grasshoppers the way we’re having to do here. I’m so ready for them to go away and never come back. I know . . not gonna happen!
Last Fall I had to replant everything because of them so I’m trying to keep a closer watch this year. I only have enough row cover for one more row so I guess whatever sprouts first will get the next two packages of row cover and maybe by then, they’ll be gone. Wishful thinking on my part, huh?
gardenpat says
What kind of row covers do you use? Do you order them on-line or are you able to get/make them locally?
Kat In Tamale Land says
We fight these here, too, but not to the extent you have them. We have mostly the huge black and orange ones. Yesterday hubby was going through the yard on the tractor after discing up the fall garden. He saw several grasshoppers and quickly dropped the disc down to help stop the tractor so he could get off and kill them… he dropped it RIGHT in the spot where our Dish Network cable is buried (about 1″ under the ground). You guessed it… now he has gone to town to get parts to splice the cable.
But, this helped us decide that when we move in the next few weeks we will NOT be moving the satellite TV. We will try an antennae and see what we can pick up. Why pay over $1K a year for TV? Of course, if he starts plugging in C-Span to the TV, that might change my mind! Also ditching the land-line phone since our cells will get good reception in the new house. YAH!
JudyL says
Good for you! Except for a couple of college football games, we’ve not had any trouble finding things to watch. Last night it was C-SPAN non-stop but it probably would have been even if we had cable. That doesn’t happen often so I knitted and it didn’t bother me.
Linda in NE says
Don’t know about Texas, but here in Nebraska the grasshoppers stay until it freezes good. Luckily they didn’t show up until a little latter in the season.
JudyL says
We’d be in big trouble because here, it never “freezes good”.
Rebecca in SoCal says
I’m sorry about those darn grasshoppers, and sincerely hope that next year is not such ideal conditions for them. However, surely it will be better at some time, and you can look back and say, ” I made it through THAT, so I can make it through almost anything.”
Marilyn says
Judy, all of us in BC are also inundated with grasshoppers this year – and wasps. We managed to get rid of the wasps (got down several nests then used some old cans of beer in wasp traps – in 3 days they were gone. The grasshoppers were hitting us in the face when we walked. There are less of them now as the weather is cooler but they really decimated our crops. They even chewed up tough cucumber leaves!
It made me think of the stories of my grandmother about the clouds of grasshoppers (or locusts) making the sky darken as they flew over, eating everything in their paths.
Mel Meister says
I don’t know how you tolerate it. I would have given up by now.