Friday, September 10, 2010
WEEVIL JUICE
I do my gardening pest treatment in true scientific but fully organic fashion. I never use insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, anycides. If it's necessary, I just do with less produce, but that rarely happens to any extreme.
This year I'm growing a lot of green peppers, naively providing major party hangouts for a kind of weevily insect I've never seen before and can't find on the gardening sites, so I figured it's time for my all-purpose hot pepper spray, maybe not as strong or detergenty as the one that killed the impressively sudsy peach tree back when I first moved here.
So I started with two fresh hot peppers (I always grow the Japanese "hawk's talon" kind), mashed them up in hot water, filtered it, added more water and a bit of detergent in a spray bottle then spritzed the mixture over the partying weevils, who scattered like the ceiling sprinklers had just come on at CBGB. I checked again an hour later and they were all back at the party, chatting, flirting, even mating, so I ramped the juice up with two more peppers, sprayed the party venues again and the weevs made greater haste away this time, but when I went back well after lunch (scientific method) they were all back in place as flagrant as before, leaning on the green walls and chatting weevily.
So this time, for the last attempt of the day I added three more peppers - that juice was getting pretty pink by now (had to be extra careful how I handled the incendiary mixture) and sprayed it over the numerous parties: the weevs stopped whatever they were doing and leaped for their lives; some dove for the ground, some flew away to unhellsome places. I stopped whatever I was doing too, because the breeze turned and I began to breathe the nanovapors.
No idea yet how all this will affect the pepper flowers or budding fruits, cough, cough, but it's all for science and I know those weevs were up to no good, they don't just hang around for the good of the peppers. Hack, hack. If they're back at it tomorrow (the sound of weevil laughter is a cutting thing), my thoughts will likely begin to drift toward organochlorine compounds, though I will never follow...
I'll just ramp the juice again, not breathe when I spray, and enjoy my share of the party leftovers.
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7 comments:
Did u know they use cayenne pepper along w/other harsh smelling (non toxic) powders to ward off dogs and other critters off of lawns? I bought a deterrant that had cayenne in it.. It definitely works.
Have u tried putting jars/jugs of water out near your veggies? that seems to work too.. My grandpa would do that and it would keep birds away as well as 4 legged folk.
Cayenne pepper is used in a lot of repellents.
And, sadly, CBGB closed in 2006.
I always feel encouraged when I hear of others who choose not to use commercial pesticides. Some of the critters laugh at us, certainly (sounds like the weevils have been enjoying a giggle-fest), but it's best, In think, in the long run.
Weevil laughter, now there's a thing. It got me thinking about laughter from all the other insects currently residing in your garden plot and what an amazing symphony that would make if only we could hear it.
Shall I send a respirator poste haste?
When I read the headline and first graph, my mind visualized you catching and pulverizing little beetles and concocting a concoction of, well, weevil juice with which to drive out the offenders.
Now I can't help but wonder if it would work on the stink bugs crawling around my 'maters. Who wants to be sprayed with his liquified brethren, I ask you?
Of course, by the time you catch enough weevils to deter the rest through the squirting of weevil juice, half the job is already done.
have the same problem, but the little buggers dont seem to have done much damage.... still plenty of fruit....
I usually boil up a bit of old tobbaco to add to pepper/detergent spray....
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