Old posting still relevant regarding grasshoppers.
This was a posting from 2008. After much discussion on the site, the topic is still relevant. I thought I would repost for those still having issues. Read on:
Either it is the apocalypse, or just a wild invasion. If you spend any time at all outside, you have probably seen the Huge, and I might add from experience – Crunchy, grasshoppers, the abundance of small snails, house fly’s and mosquitoes. For some reason, this year seems to be unusually pesky. To help you enjoy your outdoor chores and activities, here are some helpful tips, websites and ideas for ridding your yard of grasshoppers. Since Chickens are the best solution, yet illegal in the city limits, here are other options.
Some Like It Hot
Hot pepper wax insect repellent is the key. It’s in all the garden catalogs. Insects can’t stand the taste, and therefore do not eat the leaves! And it’s natural.
Ask the Doctor
You have to check out this website www.dirtdoctor.com. He believes in natural organic solutions to gardening problems.
Look for Neem
Natural insecticides with Neem as the active ingredient will kill grasshoppers. I do not think it will harm other insects, but check the label.
Neem trees are common in the Indian subcontinent and are prized in the villages where they occur. The leaves are a natural disinfectant and insecticide. Toothpaste made with Neem extract is available in the U.S. and is effective against sores in the mouth.
Try Ecobran
There’s a product called “Ecobran” that is a grasshopper bait containing a fungus that only affects grasshoppers and their close relatives. It doesn’t affect other insects or birds. ecobran.com
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Perfect timing. These ghoppers took my split leaf phillies down to nubs. Now they are moving on to my lilies and orchids.
Mine too! Now they are devouring my white bird palm! I was trimming them back the other day and a ghopper jumped out. I went postal on it with my hand trowel. Green guts everywhere!
Is there a ghopper season? Will there be a time (hopefully soon) that we won’t see them until next year?
My 10 feral cats really enjoy playing with the grasshoppers, they really have helped keep them down this summer!
Sadly you must kill the ghoppers when they hatch and are small and black. No known predators. Other than man. I noticed when I put out snail bait the tribe seemed to shrink so don’t know if they eat the snail poison and die or what. They are very destructive and will come back year after year. Same with snails. Some natural snail remedies are crushed egg shells (make a border), the beer in the shallow pool (attracts them and they drink and drown), or the pool stuff which I can’t spell, the white powdery crushed glass.
I’ ve been told that spraying the plants with dishwasi g detergent
makes the plants taste bad to grasshoppers so they won’t eat them. But I haven’t tried it so I don’t know for sure.
Susan Long
Worm’s Way has this stuff that can be used by gardeners who don’t like using traditional pesticides or are growing veggies. However, you treat your garden with at the begining of lubber season, when you first see them about, as the effect is cumulative and it eventually kills off those pesky lubbers.. Too late for this season but maybe get it now to have on hand for next season.