We All Need to go Buggy!

The weather had finally started to cool down. Normally that causes my entryway to fill up with hundreds of Japanese beetles. I've only seen two or three anywhere so far so I couldn't help wondering where they went.

Have you noticed a decline in the number of certain insects this year too?  Of course we had fewer mosquitoes due to the dry summer causing fewer places for them to breed but I've also noticed a lack of other bugs that I'm used to seeing in large numbers around here.

There were virtually no earwigs in my garden, or in the apples I cut up this year. I don't spray my apple tree and it's never been unusual to cut an apple in half and discover an inhabitant. This year I saw very few earwigs anywhere. Also during apple season I usually have to create numerous fruit fly traps in my kitchen as the little devils are everywhere. Not this year. I only had a few and they were  no problem at all.  The other day two of my friends mentioned seeing swarms of flying ants. We have had a colony near our side door for many years now. They usually emerge from the crack between two slabs of my sidewalk. This year, just like the Japanese beetles, there is no sign of them. Where have all these bugs gone?

I was chalking all this up to this year's hot, dry weather but an article on CTV news let me know this is not  just a local phenomenon. A lot of non-pest type insects seem to be in the decline throughout the world. Unfortunately mosquitoes, ticks, aphids and cockroaches all seem to be doing fine.

Scientists are starting to worry about the decline in the inset population. They are pretty sure that across the globe there are fewer insects that are crucial to as much as 80% of what we eat. Without insects we will have a total ecosystem collapse. We have heard a lot about the decline of the bee populations in recent years but it is becoming evident that the problem goes much further than that.  The use of pesticides, the spread of mono-culture crops such as corn and soybeans, urbanization and the destruction of the natural habitats as the human population grows are all factors. Hopefully we all start to see the insects as necessary to our own survival and find a way to take action  to reverse the  situation before it becomes too late. As happy as we are not to have them pestering us, we have to come to realize they are necessary for our very survival. There is an old saying about men that we will now have to apply to insects as well. You can't live with them but you can't live without them. Think about that.

I'm Here, But Busy

Okay, so I've been gone too long, and I'm sorry about that. Well, not really because instead of sitting inside at my computer, I've been busy with the garden, and all that it offers. A lot of that requires work, but it's all worth it. I've got stacks of pies and applesauce, for instance.I've also been on vacation to the east coast. But it's time to get back in here before you all disappear.

My one zucchini plant produced 17 zucchini before the vine bores managed to completely kill it off.   Do you know about vine borers?  I didn't.  I was out watering the garden just before supper one afternoon, but when I went back out after we ate the plant had drooped so badly it looked like it was dying. I stormed into the house and demanded to know which of my men, my hubby or my son, had decided to do away with that zucchini plant. I mean, not only did they have a zucchini blueberry snacking cake with lemon butter cream icing for dessert but I had also fed them pasta with a zesty zucchini spaghetti sauce for the main course. I figured they had gotten desperate and tried to put an end to this sort of food. They both claimed to be innocent and had no idea what I was fuming about so I marched them out there and pointed at the poor plant. It had been so healthy just an hour or two ago!  Nobody would fess up so I hit the internet and googled "zucchini AND wilted leaves" and that's when I got my education on vine borers.

It seems a moth with clear wings lays it's eggs on the bottom of the leaves and when they hatch the larvae bore into the base of the stocks and eat the inside of the vine. Eventually the leaves will suddenly die, and I do mean suddenly!

A bit of further investigation taught me to do a little surgery on the vine and dig the nasty grubs out. After I did that, the remaining plant started growing again, and I got a few more zucchini off it before it was obvious that there must have been more critters in there than those I managed to remove. I was amazed at how such a big plant could survive when more than 3/4 of the part of the stem attached to the ground was gone. But when it finally wilted again, I gave it up as a lost cause. There was so little of the actual base of the stem left by then that I figured if I dug around in that I'd break it off anyway.

On closer inspection of my pumpkin plant, I see

that the darn borers have invaded it too,  But the pumpkin stem is a much more solid thing and the leaves stayed healthy until the plant got no water for the week I was away. The leaves are dying off now, but that's okay as the pumpkin is ready to be picked anyway.

If the vine borer in the pumpkin had been causing a problem and it had actually grown in or at least near a garden, I could have rescued it by just burying any junction part of the stem and it would grow new roots instead of doing surgery on the stem. After the new roots had established I would have been able to cut away the original stem and remove the borers completely. But this is a plant the squirrels gifted me with, and it's just growing in the grass near the house.

It's been interesting to learn about vine borers but I'd just as soon not have to experience them again.

Right now it's tomato season, and there is no shortage of those either.

I'll try to get back to you sooner next time, but my busy season isn't over yet, so I can make no promises.