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canyoncrawler

Early grasshoppers eating my peppers. Any Ideas?

canyoncrawler
14 years ago

I plowed in march and i guess the grasshoppers laid many eggs in my garden. The tiny 1/2 to 1 inch buggers are eating my peppers to the point where they have reached a growth plateau and are starting to yellow...meanwhile my tomatoes, which are in the same bed are 1-1.5 ft tall compared to the sickly 4-6 inch ravaged peppers. They also like my sweet potatoes.

I have tried in order:

compost tea

Garlic oil/fish emulsion spray

Molasses pits

garlic/cayenne/fish emulsion spray with Dr. Bronners peppermint soap

Insecticidal soap

Combo of these in succession

Planting a row ow lowe's damaged "50 cent special"rootbound geraniums at the perimeter of the garden to try to lure the grasshoppers in.

What should i do? This has slowed the attack, but still they come. My wife and I handpick my entire garden 1-3 times a day and this rustling of the foliage has made my tomatoes quite stocky!

I dont wanna use neem yet, and i recall it not working for hoppers last year. But I didnt have such an early problem then. It was more of a problem later in the summer.

What i have is actually neem/pyrethrins/roetenone mix that i reserve for some fruit trees, because my other neem oil may be bad, since it is about 8 years old.

I would appreciate ANYTHING that i could use before neem, but i am out of ideas.

Thanks!

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