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June 22, 2007
Chinch Bug Invasion
I may have mentioned that the Indian mustard was doing well... past tense. It got eaten by chinch bugs. Chinch bugs feed on the weed tansy mustard in the spring. When the tansy mustard goes to seed and dries out, the chinch bugs migrate looking for something else to eat. They usually get a few leaves of cabbage and do some damage to the peas and move on. This was the first year I grew Indian mustard, and the bugs blanketed it.
I bought some pesticide made from the oil of the neem tree, which I'm familiar with-- in India, they make soap and other cosmetics from it. This neem-based pesticide is supposed to kill all kinds of insects. But it didn't even slow the chinch bugs down. By evening, the mustard looked black, the bugs were so thick. By next morning, they'd sucked the life out of the leaves, which looked more like cheesecloth than plant.
Well, that caused me to lose my sense of humor. I got out some Bug-B-Gone super toxic hazardous waste-based wide spectrum pest killer. (OK, that may be a slight exaggeration.) It killed the chinch bugs. But I think it's too late for the mustard. It'll be a miracle if it comes back now.
Posted by DJSueellen at June 22, 2007 11:45 PM
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