Bella...
I'm not sure, but I think a bale of straw someone gave my DS was how I got the Blister Beetles in my garden. Same side of the garden where I laid the mulch out. Right after that, I had Blister Beetles in my tomatos near by. I now know they often go into fields to feast on grasshopper larvae.

Barbara

Bella and Barbara,

I just think the bugs are all over Oklahoma this year and are traveling from place to place, and not in hay or straw mulch. The insect pressure is heavy in parts of Arkansas, Kansas and Texas too. I think it is just one of those years.

I have used hay and straw for about 15 years now, using as much as 4 large round bales or 40 to 50 small square bales in one year, and have never had bugs come out of the hay while I was breaking open the bales and spreading the hay or straw. I have seen scorpions, crickets and grasshoppers crawl underneath bales of hay, presumably to hide from me or to seek shelter from the sun.

I bet I could go next door, where there is no hay or straw and no garden and I bet there would be blister beetles, cucumber beetles, hornworms, etc. there too. I know I had cucumber beetles and aphids on/around my backyard flowers in March or April, long before I had any new hay mulch or even any garden plants of any size to attract them. I see hornworms (and other caterpillars) crossing the road from one field to another when I'm out walking the dogs. The earth is a ecosystem and they live in it--they always will be with us, but their numbers vary from year to year.

It is easy for us to blame the 'sudden' appearance of bugs on mulch, but we need to remember bugs are everywhere and the migrate and move from place to place in search of food. If you have food, they'll find your place.

Bella, I wouldn't waste perfectly good mulch by burning it but it is your choice of course. Since bugs overwinter in different ways, I don't think it will affect them much because they are everywhere. What would help more would be to rototill the soil about once a month in the winter (if it isn't too wet to do so) to expose overwintering bugs, larvae, pupae, etc. to cold weather so they'll die. Any bugs that try to overwinter in mulch likely would be eaten by ground beetles anyway.

This year I have had more bugs than most years, but I have used shredded leaves, grass clippings and bagged pine bark and shredded cypress mulch in my garden beds. No hay or straw in the veggie garden. So, do I blame my bugs on the grass clippings? the bagged mulch? Nope. This is summer. We had a wet spring. Bugs are everywhere. It is normal. And, by the way, I have hay mulch on the ground around my containers of tomatoes and peppers in the back yard, and we have hay on the ground in the dog yard, and we have hay mulch on a new flower bed in front under the pecan tree. The only pests I have seen in these areas is 1 blister beetle on 1 tomato plant. So, you can believe your pests came in with the hay, but I am not convinced.

Insects travel a long way to find food. I believe I read once that Colorado Potato Beetles can fly 500 miles in search of food. So, if you have food, they will come and find it. They have to...if they want to survive.

We have so many excessively dry years here in Love County that I forget how bad the bugs are in a very wet year. So, in that sense, this year has been a surprise but then when I think of other wet years since 1999 (2004, 2007), I remember we had a lot of bugs then--especially CPBs, squash bugs and grasshoppers. We also had blister beetles in one of those two years--and I think it was 2004--but they didn't touch the tomatoes. They were, however, all over the sweet autumn clematis.

Dawn

Dawn...
As usual, good advice, and it makes sense. One way or another, the protocol needs to be deligence and control. I feel a LOT more in control now that I keep a closer watch on my garden so that things, (like bugs or disease) don't sneak up on me and take over, and also that I have some items in my "organic medicine cabinet" when an infestation does occur.
I did doctor my garden with SemaSpore when I noticed a huge infestation of grasshoppers starting about a week and a half ago, but unfortunately the big rain we had a few days ago probably washed it away before it could have much impact. Right now, they are pretty much sequestered in a "buffer zone" and not in my main garden. If they start moving into that area, as many as there are, they could cause major damage if I don't figure out a control for them. I don't know whether I should wait, or start looking for some Ecobran now.

Barbara

I agree with Dawn. If you feel the need work it into the soil this fall. And like she said you can turn the soil over several times to kill more bugs and larvae. I wouldn't waste it by burning. You will lose a valuable soil additive and also I doubt the source of most of your bugs. I remember when summer and fall skies would be a haze and highways a danger to drive down with all the burning of wheat straw and corn stalks. Now those same farmers have realized what they were burning is one of the best additives to the soil. And most are leaving most of it on the surface to save moisture and to decay. I have seen one field burned in our area this year. Jay

Barbara,

In the ten years we've been here, I've studied our native ecosystem very carefully and have come to understand that it is natural and normal to have insects. They are, after all, a part of the natural world. Really, I think less than 2% of the insects we see actually harm our garden. So, I try to stay calm, address individual pests (like I did earlier this week when I started snipping them in half with my scissors in the garden) and not get excited about the others. It is hard, though, to convince non-gardeners that any insects are good insects. I have a friend who freaks out if a wasp flies by no matter how many time I tell her wasps are beneficials and that caterpillars would strip our plants bare if we didn't have wasps to help control them. She just has that "all bugs are bad" mentality.

I'm always and forever making water puddles for the small animals, birds and bugs. I leave out pieces of fruit or melon rinds or different food items for them. Even when I add kitchen waste to the compost pile, I put it right on top so the critters can find it first if they need to eat it. I plant numerous flowering annuals and perennials that have tiny flowers to provide food for/attract beneficials. I'm not crazy about insects, but I know my garden needs them.

Where gardens (and gardeners) get in trouble is when we have an out-of-control pest in a garden doing damage. Pests that seem to get out of control almost every year include grasshoppers (although much worse some years than others), Colorado Potato Beetles, Cucumber Beetles, Tomato Hornworms (more plentiful and damaging in some parts of the region than others), spider mites (if plants are sprayed with Sevin), stink bugs and squash bugs.

I think aphids are an interesting example of how the bug world works. In my garden, they show up first--earlier than everything else except bees (which we have year round here). There are days you can walk out the doors and aphids are all over everything. It is easy to go nuts and start spraying neem oil. However, if I am patient and wait a week or so, the beneficials--especially the lady bugs--show up and take care of the aphids. If I have aphids at any other time of the year, I don't notice them.

I have the same thing happen here with spider mites. They show up here in mid- to late-May. If I ignore them, the lady bugs and other beneficials (including beneficial carnivorous spider mites!) take care of them and I see few of them and even less damage from them for the rest of the year. If, on the other hand, I panic and start spraying, i may kill a few spider mites, but I also kill all the bad bugs that control the spider mites. Since herbivore bugs resurge first, the spider mites resurge and multiply rapidly and devastate my plants by late June. By the time the beneficials resurge (they don't reproduce until there's a sufficient level of existing pests to feed their babies, so they always resurge significantly later), the spider mite population is too large to control.

So, I've learned to relax and accept the presence of most bugs. There are some unacceptable ones, and I'd put blister beetles, stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs on that list. Still, I just don't get excited about much.

Jay,

I wish the ranchers here would stop burning off their grazing lands every year. We get so many large wildfires in late winter that begin as someone burning off a pasture. Or, if they did it the way you're required to do in Texas with big plowed firebreaks and specific parameters...like only when the wind speed is at low speeds and when the humidity is higher. I understand why they do it to keep invasive weeds out, but think there must be a better way.

Wheat farmers here mostly still burn on their stubble too. Of course, the drought has been so hard on them that not many here are growing wheat any more.

Dawn

Thanks everyone. I will certainly reconsder my plan!
Bella

Dawn and all
Actually, I have been enjoying observing my "bugs" and have been babying and making provision for my beneficials. The only ones I've declared war on have been the grasshopper invasion. The SemaSpore I laid down hasn't seemed to have much of an effect. After watching them start gnawing large holes in some of my ornamentals, I went out and sprayed with some Spinosad this evening. We'll see what that does. Then if they get any worse, and move into my main garden area, I think I'll have to resort to some EcoBan rather than see my garden decimated. Blister Beetles also are a disgusting bug, and since they move in swarms, I can see where they'd total a tomato crop, and leave their nasty droppings behind. I'm SO glad we have a few organic controls for these pests.

I know it goes with the territory to have bugs and pests, but it's unsettling to go out into your garden and see grasshoppers flying and jumping all over your plants and eating holes in them. Other than that, I am pretty laid back about insect populations on the place and glad to see that I have a lot of beneficial activity active and thriving.

About the mulch-compost and mulch are wonderful things to have. I wish I had a bunch more straw or hay mulch. I've been thinking about buying some bales. One feed store had bales for sale for $7.00 apiece. Can you believe that?!! I'll have to do better than that or I'll just have to go mulchless this year.

The garden's doing pretty good in spite of a drenched spring and getting a late start, but still-you can never have enough mulch. Nothing enriches the soil better or keeps it more living and vital. The best I can do this year it seems to to get some cover crops of my own up and started. Not ready yet, but they will be by fall, and then I'll plant winter cover crops after that.

Barbara

Barbara,

I think that the Texas drought is driving up the cost of hay in this part of the country. All day long we see 18-wheeler flatbeds loaded with tons and tons and tons of hay traveling south down the interstate to Texas.

Here, the going rate for hay lately varies from $5 to $6 per bale, with it being higher later in the season as the weather heats up and the demand for hay increases. Some years it is $3 to $4 a bale, and in the worst drought times, it is $7 or more. I try to get 'spoiled' hay from friends and neighbors when they have it, but we buy some too.

You'd think we would have had enough rain here in Love County this year that everyone would have a lot of hay to cut and bale, but I've already seen some folks buying 18-wheeler loads of hay here. We saw one such truck unloading bales at a neighbor's house about 2 miles from us last week. I guess too much rain fell at once in April and not a lot since June 1st.

One neighbor who overgrazed his pastures the last two years because of the drought (desperate ranchers can be driven by drought to overgraze as a survival technique although it hurts them in the long term) has been buying and feeding hay to his cattle all spring and summer, which is highly unusual, and he is not the only one.

Y'all, remember that fall is coming and that means autumn leaves. Leaves are worth their weight in gold. I have no shortage of them since we have acres of woods, so I can have all I gather. For those of you with smaller property or fewer trees, bagged leaves set out for garbage pickup are there for the taking. I know gardeners who drive around in town and pick up every bag of leaves they find before the trash service can pick them up.

Dawn

Barbara,
I don't know where you live, but I recently discovered McHay north of Lawton. They have extremely clean straw for $4.95 a bale. I have been using it for my chicken nesting boxes. No weeds in that I can see, and it is very tightly baled.
Bella

Bella

You have some VERY lucky chickens! I'm afraid McHay in Lawton would be a stretch for me. But I am seriously thinking of buying a round bale for $25 which I think will fit in the back of my pickup, and then that should help with the mulch situation, until I can harvest my cover crops, and then start scavenging those bags of precious leaves this fall that Dawn mentioned. I am wanting mulch more as an amendment than to actually mulch my crops, as I pretty well have that covered now. But like I said before, you can never have too much mulch in a garden! It's wonderful stuff.

Thanks so much for responding :)

Barbara