I love getting mail from my readers. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of gardening questions. Most of them are really common problems; How to Control Potato Beetles. So rather than responding to each email, I thought I would share my response, in case there are more of you out there having the same problem {or even better, some more seasoned gardeners than me who can share some tips in the comments section}.
Sue asked,
Planted potatoes last year and spent most of days picking off potato bugs. I saw your idea on potato towers and will try this year. Do you have any ideas on how to control potato bugs? Any advice on them will be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks
Bugs are a pain in the you know what when it comes to gardening. Actually, I shouldn’t say that, because some of them are down right awesome, but the ones that want to eat your food before you do, they, well, “bug” me.
How to Control Potato Beetles
I am not a huge fan of chemicals. One, because chemicals are not great for you. And two, because I am too frugal to want to spend good money on something that can be prevented or dealt with another way. So, my suggestion is to start with prevention.
Companion planting will help to deter them from ever settling in because the smell of the companion plants repel the beetles. You’ll want to integrate these plants {a variety or just one} in between the rows of your potatoes in order for them to be protective:
- Horseradish
- Bush Beans
- Catnip {put these in small pots around your potatoes, because they are like mint and will take over}
- Cilantro
- Sweet Allysum
- Fennel
- Cosmos
- Coriander
- Tansy
- Marigolds
Another way to prevent them is to use light row covers on your taters from start to finish. That will keep a barrier between the enemy and your harvest {actually, they don’t typically want the potato, they want the leaves, which just ruins the plant and the potato in the end}.
If you do notice them, try introducing natural predators to the area. Ladybugs will eat the larvae and destroy them. Ladybugs must be introduced when the problem already exists, and not as prevention, though, because ladybugs will leave an area if it doesn’t have an immediate food source.
While the ladybugs are fighting the problem, you will have to continue to pick them off by hand. I personally find pinching them off of the plant kind of therapeutic.
If you really want to throw some sort of something onto the plants to stop the bugs, try diatomaceous earth. It’s a non-toxic powder that you can dust on the leaves to repel the bugs. I have not personally used it, but I know a couple of people who swear by it.
I hope that helps, and if any of YOU have some tips for Sue, make sure to leave them in the comments below.
~Mavis
MTGayle says
I prefer Diatomaceous Earth. It’s is a natural fossil shell flour. It erodes the protective wax coating on bugs & then they die of dehydration. It’s harmless & actually good for humans and pets. I would suggest you get a “puffer” to apply it with. So simple.
Cecily says
DE is also great for keeping mites and ticks off the chickens. I dust their roosting bar with it once a month and mix a little into the dirt where they dust bathe.
Rebecca Loach says
One thing I have wondered about the Diatomaceous Earth is if it will harm bees or other pollinators.
Sarah Smith says
I prefer to not use Diatomaceous Earth in my garden because it can kill any bug that gets into it, I worry it will hurt the green lace wings and other beneficial insects. I’m not sure about honey bees, but imagine DE isn’t good for them.
Spenser says
Thanks for the tip about DE dusting! Didn’t find that tip before now. Noticed more and more nibbles being taken out of my potato plant leaves. Gonna go dust them now! I use it for my cats but now it’s going to the garden! Marigold worked like a charm last year! Opted to try horseradish this year but think I waited to late to plant it! Well, I didn’t wait, my order kept being placed on back order!
Sheryl says
We pick them off into a bowl / jar and dump them into the chicken pen – they LOVE them!
Jill says
This post brought back some memories for me! One summer in college, I worked as a research assistant with one of my science professors. She was researching a particular type of insect as a natural predator to help control potato beetles. I spent many hours out in the potato field setting up the experiments and tracking data. You may think I’m crazy, but if you ever saw a 1 or 2 day old potato beetle, they are really cute! However, as adults not so much. 🙂