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Dave

nightmare - it has taken 5 years to establish a half-decent asparagus bed because these sodding things do so much damage - have taken to daily vigilance with a bucket of hot water - the drowning by hand is all I managed (since they laughed at pyrethrum).

Attrition works.

After a couple of years, first picking & drowning then later just hard-flicking the asparagus beetles off, plus removing all fronds with visible eggs, last year I had NO beetles. Yay!

Had the same kind of result with slugs. I went round the yard each morning, initially finding as many as 200 at a go: Winged them high over the deer fence onto the gravel road outside. They gradually diminished till now I seldom see a slug. Maybe word got around in slugland.

I never saw the danged beetles! Just the damage!
I raked the leaves that didn't break down last winter off of the gus, and either the beetles dissapeared during that time, or raking the hiding place got them to leave! I'm not sure! Nancy

I have never had them before this year either. I have an absolute infestation. Hundreds of them. I bought some pyrethrum but haven''t used it because I hate the idea but other than hand picking (which is tricky cuz the little suckers are FAST) I don't know what else to do. I know other insects will help but it just seems hopeless at this point. There are SO many. I will follow this thread and see if anyone else comes up with something. I am so sad. It's my favorite in the garden.

Oh, and I had BOTH kinds of beetles too. The orange spotted ones and the other. I am in California and I thought the orange spotted ones were found east of the Mississippi?

Angie

Hand picking seems to be keeping them down. They are fast, but usually if they jump off the plant they're on the ground at the base and I just squash them. I've got pyrethrin but am reluctant to use it until we're done harvesting.

I picked and destroyed a handful of spears that contained eggs, which is what I'm most concerned about at the moment. Boy those little suckers can sure lay a lot of eggs. The ladybugs are on order.

I can't figure out where they came from. I just put in the asparagus bed two years ago and last year was constantly picking them off. I'm about the only person in the area that has a garden. How did they find me? Did they come with the roots? Hopefully, this year with my constant vigilance (ala Professor Moody) there won't be too many.
Keski

They fly in from wherever besides overwintering in soil. I do beetle patrol early in the day; they move a bit slower in the cool of the morning. I have come up with a pretty good technique: since usually the beetles' first reaction when approached is quickly to move to the other side of the stem thay are on (like squirrels that circle round to the far side of a tree trunk when they see you coming!) or else drop to the ground when a hand approaches them, I first carefully slip my cottage cheese container half full of dish-soapy water about 6-8" UNDER where the beetle is and then slowly reach my arm/hand above the beetle and come down at it. Nine times out of 10 the beastie obligingly drops right into the container.
For the larvae I either just pick off the bit of foliage they are on & drop them into the water, or if I have been inattentive and there are enough to warrant the effort, I mix up a quart of Neem solution in a spray bottle and go merrily a-spraying. This does seem to kill them -- not immediately, but by the next day they look all shriveled and kaput.

Be interesting to see how many I get this year; earlier this spring I raked off the straw mulch from last year and topped off the bed with several inches of well-rotted horse manure. (Of course, now I have a multitude of tiny weed seedlings germinating away so I'll soon have to cultivate between the spears. Don't like to mulch too early as I do not want to slow down spear production, but I think I will in a few days. I will lightly cultivate out the seedlings as soon as the soil dries out after the weekend rain since we are supposed to have sun & temps in the upper 70s the rest of the week. Yay!

Angiemomma4: Both kinds of beetle are present here, Canadian west coast.

Weedlady: I originally did your knock-em-off-into-soapy-water trick, but later found I could send them sailing off (not flying) with a hard thumb & finger flick, which was much easier. That seemed to do them in although it was hard to see where they landed. The population declined rapidly so I'm sure they were at least seriously debilitated and lost either the urge or ability to reproduce :)

And yes they make a LOT of tiny eggs. Stripping off the foliage with eggs or larvae was the more tedious part of the job. I simply dropped that foliage on the ground beside my raised bed and the lack of a living host-plant must have done for them.

I do only have a small asparagus patch though, and I understand the frustration & temptation to spray, for any one with an appreciable crop.

Apologies as this is off-topic. Please email me if you can comment:

I do not receive email notification when others post to this thread although I believe I should.

Where I post my message it says:
"A copy of further followups will be emailed to this poster." (which is what I want) and "Check here if you would like post replies emailed to you." (Which seems redundant after the first statement but I did it anyway) - But no emails arrive.

At first I thought this was a problem with my ISP's filtering system so I switched to a Gmail account but I'm still not getting those notifications. They don't arrive anywhere in my system - junk mail, spam box, trash etc.

There's also an option for allowing others to send email, which I think is a separate issue. It is activated and I have received emails from a couple of members (but have no way of knowing if other messages have gone AWOL.)

Neither gardenweb nor my ISP have been able to resolve this issue, which makes following a thread a bit laborious.

Are others having the same problem, or does it work for some of you - or do I just misunderstand what's supposed to happen?

Thanks for any information you can give me.
Vanisle.

Weedlady- What a wonderful suggestion. I used the soapy water method, holding the container underneath the beetle and they seemed like they were in training for the Olympics-they just dove right in when I touched the stalk. I had a few that thought they outfoxed me by moving to the other side of the spear, but that small container is awfully easy to move, too.

I made four trips through the asparagus bed and got a few each time. Altogether, about two dozen. They're now on a ride through the city sewer system.

I was getting concerned that by picking them off there wouldn't be enough eggs to keep my ladybugs home when they get here. Not to worry-these critters can lay LOTS of eggs. I'm hoping that the ladybugs can keep the new hatches down and that I'll reduce the adult population with the soap suds method.

Just checked on the ETA of my ladies and they told me they are on backorder until the end of next month. Either the asparagus will be gone by then or I'll be permanently stooped over from giving the adults swimmin lessons.

I went out this morning for my asparagus inspection, carrying my container of soapy water, and found a new beetle. The one is shaped like an asparagus beetle, but is red with black spots. When I first saw it, I thought that maybe I had had some ladybugs move in. But upon closer inspection, it's definately not a ladybug.

The first one I let go, but on a later spear I found another and also an asparagus beetle with it. Both went for a swim.

So, good or bad?

Wolverine:

"shaped like an asparagus beetle, but is red with black spots"

It IS a (bad) asparagus beetle. There are 2 kind and you want to get rid of both. Happy hunting

http://www1.extension.umn.edu/garden/insects/find/asparagus-beetles/

Vanlsle_BC, thanks for the link. That's what I was seeing. Tomorrow they both go.

Hopefully my handpicking is coming to an end as I got notice today that my ladybugs have shipped and should be here the end of the week. Sure hope that they arrive hungry....

wolverine1012; please don't forget to post follow-ups on the effectiveness of the ladybugs.