Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Every single year we get hit like crazy by Japanese Beetles. My grandparents put out those yellow traps for them but they fill up within the day and we'll still have a ton of them roaming around and eating our plants. Anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of them?

Hey Shanklypants:

Japanese Beetles-ack! Lemme tell you about them. They pupate in the soil, so the best plan of control is stopping them before they emerge as lil' zombies that eat your garden. How do you do that? You have a couple of choices:

Beneficial Nematodes- these pin worms arrive on a sponge the size of a credit card--alive and ready to eat any insect pupating in the soil! You dip that sponge in the soil to make nematode tea, water 'em in, and let them do their work. You need to reapply them every 6-8 weeks for optimum control, and the ones we sell are LIVE, raised on a live insect diet, and can live in your fridge up to 6-8 weeks as well, so buy 'em in bulk if you can swing it. Many of our competitors sell them freeze dried and they are not as effective. Each sponge has 1,000,000 nematodes on it and that covers about 2,500 sq. feet of space. You don't want to leave them in your watering can for more than 20 minutes or they'll drown. You also don't want your garden area/yard to dry out or they'll just burrow lower in the soil to find food, and die. These bennies are harmless to people and pets. Here's a handy link to nematodes from WSU:
cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/pnw0544/pnw0544.pdf -
(This is a PDF, let me know if you can't open it and I'll email it to you. jmolica@wormsway.com Super comprehensive info! I love me some insect nerds.)

Milky Spore Powder-this is a bacteria that kills the grub and the spore replicates so after one or two applications of this in your yard/garden, you're set for a while. Organic, and expensive. Harmless to people and pets.
http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?t=prod&sku=MSP700

JBs cause other problems besides destroying your plants. They are the main food source for moles, voles, gophers, and groundhogs. If they are present in your soil, you'll have these pests too. Get rid of the grubs, get rid of the critters.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you need anything else!

Thank you so much! I have never even heard of these things before and we've been trying to get rid of them for years. We have things planted already but the beetles haven't come out yet (that I've noticed) so will this still work if I have plants in the ground? (sorry if that's a stupid question, haha)

I'm going to a garden store today so I will look for them tonight!

The nematodes and milky spore will not hurt existing plants, seedlings, or transplants.

Thank you so much! You really don't know how helpful this is, we have had tons of problems with JB's.

Oh Shankopants, you don't have to tell me--they are problematic in Hoosierland too. When I was digging holes in the ground to plant seedlings, I kept finding grubs.

We get the beetles from time to time and when searching around the internet, I have read on some sites those yellow bag traps may actually make things worse because it attracts beetles from all over, adding to your yard population. We noticed that when our neighbors had one up we had lots more of them show up to eat our bean leaves. I hope you can get them under control with jewbacca's advice, they are ruthless critters!

I can see how that would happen! The yellow bags have a little cartridge on the inside that contain something to attract the beetles so that they fly into the bag. I really wanted to try one of the methods that jewbacca gave me but I couldn't find either of them at my most local garden store. If I get a chance, I'll try to look at some more garden centers. All mine had was chemicals really.

Mr. Shankly:

Please keep me employed and order your stuff through my company: Worm's Way. You can order online or better yet, talk directly with **ME** and I'll give you free shipping. Yep, free shipping--unless the weight of your order is super heavy or something. If you order beneficial insects-(like nematodes), I'll give you half off shipping, because insects have to ship 2nd day.

1-800-274-WORM. Ask for Jen.

For the record, if ANYONE from the PPK orders from WW, I'll waive/reduce shipping if you mention that you're PPK family when you call. I can't grant it if you purchase online, because the computer manages the shopping cart.

I'll post a separate thread about this.