cukes and the beetle

Picked four nice fat Cucumbers from the garden this morning.

The night before last I sprayed half the garden for cucumber beetle control. I used an Ecosmart organic insect killer, which is very soapy and its main ingredients are the oils of rosemary, peppermint, thyme and clove. The very next day it rained hard, and for the first time I was dismayed at rain, fearing it would wash all the spray off the plants! But I started keeping beetle count again, and the results are encouraging already.

The first morning after spraying I picked 54 cucumber beetles total off the garden (and I didn't spray the pumpkin patch, ran out of stuff). Today I only got 28 beetles, missed three which flew away too quick. That's remarkable. Even when I was searching for them I was thinking: there seem to be less! but I wasn't sure until I counted my catch. The bugs seemed to be moving slower, too, though I'm not sure if that's from the effects of the spray or because of the lower temperatures with incoming rain.

The bees seem to be okay; I still see plenty crawling happily in and out of flowers. Funny, I did notice that on the cucurbits most of the beetles are the striped variety, with just a few spotted ones (which are bigger and fatter). On the Swiss Chard and Green Beans I only find spotted cucumber beetles. I wonder if they have more of a liking for certain plants?