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PerennialsVegetable GardeningIntegrated Pest Management
mxk3

Box elder bugs

3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago

There is a bumper crop of box elder bugs this year -- I kid you not there's a thousand if there's one out there. Unbelievable. They're on and around pretty much everything in the vegetable garden except the squash, but I've noticed the largest congregations of them ON the pepper plants and around the green beans. I haven't noticed any plant damage, though -- so I'm wondering if I actually need to do anything about the situation or just leave things be. I have some spinosad, but I hate to spray if I really don't need to, especially since I'd have to spray pretty much everything - plants and ground.

Similar situation when I first moved into this house 7 years ago, it was fall and they numbered in the hundreds on a window. The back wall of the house was crawling with them. I bought a small shop vac for use as a bug vac, but I can't really vacuum them up from the garden, the mulch would get sucked in along with the bugs and I might damage the plants. Works great on the house and windows, though. I wonder if it's cyclical or something, they haven't been this bad since then.

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