You can vacuum the bugs off the plants with a small, cordless, hand-held vacuum cleaner like a Dustbuster. They are very hard to control. Insecticides works best while the bugs are still very small, although it doesn't seem especially effective.

Dawn

THANK YOU!! I was devastated to see an army of these bastards on some of my tomato plants this morning. I hand picked a few before I went to work. I had 3 small blisters on my fingers that I didn't associate with the bugs at all. When I got home, I was amazed at the damage they had done, and was about to give up and try rotoneone, when I came across this posting. I don't have a handheld vac, so i plugged up my rainbow canister vac & an extension cord, and Voila! The neighbors think I'm crazy, but they spray POISON on their FOOD who's the crazy one?

I've been hit with a Blister Beetle infestation 2 years running.
I've been told that an equal mixture of Lime and Houshold Flour will do the trick. I've purchased some of each and are ready to try it if and when they turn up.

You could give it a try

Mick.

Fuzzy158, Glad it worked for you! I agree....crazy is in the eye of the beholder and your vacuuming technique is a lot smarter than poisoning your garden.

Mick, Maybe since you have had two "up" years in the blister beetle population cycle the previous two years, this might be a "down" year and you won't even have to use that Lime and Household Flour? Or, the evil creatures are waiting for you to go out of town so they can then attack your garden.

Dawn

Dawn

Hopefully, the former. :-)

Probably, the latter :-(

Either way, I'm poised for action.

Mick.

Last year one of my daughters did a research project on blister beetles... in my garden. Her conclusion was that the most effective way to cut down on them was to have the weeds well removed around the tomato plants. They didn't seem to bother the plants which were well weeded. I know this wasn't a full blown, funded, project; and my memory probably left something out. But I believe it's worth a try. So far we haven't seem more than a couple, this year. I destroyed them early in the season, before there was any damage.

Hey, be careful if hand picking blister beetles! I got careless last year and wiped the sweat from my brow, using the same hand I had used to kill a beetle. By nightfall I had a giant blister, the size of a half dollar; and it hurt!

George
Tahlequah, OK

George,

I know that blister beetles, like stinkbugs, overwinter in "weeds" that are left standing over the winter, so a good fall cleanup helps too. My garden stays pretty well-weeded and I've never had blister beetles (though that is probably more luck than anything), but stinkbugs arrive with the hot weather every year....and if you squish them, they do stink! (I squish them anyway.)

Dawn