“Bugged”

~ Elizabeth

Our store of frozen blueberries finally gone, Charlie strung even tougher mesh around his large blueberry patch hoping to keep the hungry birds out. Somehow we have never managed to steer them away from the garden to the luscious bird feeders hung just for them. The outer barrier has held so far, and only one robin and one starling have found their way into the crop.

However when he went out to pick berries he found several bushes looking poorly, including one that looked as if it had been sucked dry. Looking more closely, he found hundreds of the above pictured critters. Thanks to his camera phone and Google, he quickly identified the culprit as a box elder bug.

We avoid all pesticides in our yard to keep our dogs and birds safe, so we were quite concerned to be confronted with our first infestation by a new predator.(I have been wanting to use “infestation” for a long time in a post. Not sure what that says about me!) To Charlie’s delight, a simple mixture of water and dish soap sprayed on the bugs kills them quickly. Off he went, a warrior on the advance. He returned triumphant having begun to decimate the hoard. (Another great heretofore unused verb!)

Now we just need to remember to rinse the soap off before we freeze the new bounty.

32 thoughts on ““Bugged””

  2. Yuck! I have never seen or heard of a Box Elder.Good to know how to treat an “INFESTATION “ should the dreaded need arise. Love Me P.S.Thanks so much for the coupon to have my I Pad worked on.😘

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  3. Apparently, watered down washing up liquid (which I translate to be your dish-soap) is good for a lot of bugs I use it for the greenfly on my roses too Pete.) I also use it on my window-sill basil when it gets bugged, because it’s easy to wash off later by holding the pots sideways under the tap. (I use the biggest basil leaves as salad leaves with the baby spinach and romaine, but it doesn’t like to grow outdoors here.)
    Next door has a cherry tree, but if we’re not quick to harvest the cherries, the birds can clear them all in a day!

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  6. A handsome photo and a tale of triumph. My ridiculous reason for avoiding the word “decimate” is due to a pedantic piece of obsolete teaching I received in my youth. “Decimate means to kill ten per cent of the enemy.” (Think Latin derivation.) We tend to believe our first teaching on matters of language, and sure enough, I did. But for decades (perhaps forever) “decimate” has also been used to mean “slaughter the whole damn lot” as any dictionary will declare. And as your little critters will discover as they float away on soapy water.

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  12. I picked our first few blueberries a few days ago – most are still green. Ours are not low bush berries but rather tall swooping branches laden with berries. I try to pick them before the bears and the deer get them.

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