bugs

My beer traps caught absolutely nothing last night. But by close inspection in the early morning when bugs are sluggish from the cold, I found the culprits:

They look like cucumber beetles, except they're not bright yellow, but brown. Some striped, some spotted. Also some reddish spotted ones on the Swiss Chard that I mistook for ladybugs at a glance and left alone too long. They have a more pinkish tint than ladybugs and look like a rosy version of the spotted cuke beetle. I'm not sure if these are some variation of cucumber beetles, or another kind of bug entirely, but they're doing the same kind of damage!

Holes in most of my Green Beans

and some of the Peppers

I picked off and squashed as many as I could find, but most would immediately drop off the leaf into the mulch litter when they sensed me coming. I have this love/hate thing with organic mulch. I love that it holds in moisture and feeds the plants. I hate that it gives nasty bugs a hideout. So pulled all the mulch off the bean and pepper plots. Now if they drop I can spot them on the ground and squish them before they get away. I'd rather battle heat with extra water than give the bugs an edge.

They're also making my poor Zucchini plants sick- I'm going to have to pull some out. It's sad that what's usually such a prolific plant so far only has two small-sized zucchinis on them. But I'd far rather sacrifice zucchinis than have the bugs ruining my melons and cucumbers. So far they haven't found those- or are being deterred by the interplantings of Basil and Cilantro. Next year I am going to put a wall of cilantro around the entire garden!

They've found my Pumpkins, though (which are huge enough to begin sprawling out of the patch already). Today looking closely I found lots of bees happily poking around deep inside the pumpkin flowers, but also a few cuke beetles and some sad-looking leaves nearby. I pick them out of the depths of the flowers with tweezers and squash immediately.