Colorado potato beetle – Beautiful Chaos

Hotbed neglected

I really have to do something here

This corner of the hotbed has a lot of sow thistle with a few volunteer potatoes in between. The sow thistles are short before blooming, so it is high time to remove them. So said, so done. After 1,5 hours, with the children’s help in transporting the weeds away, all of the weeds are removed. Not all weeds came with there roots out, so these will grow back soon, but then I will just remove them again.

What I have noticed is that the potato plants in between the weeds have done well. They grew big and look healthy without any pest infestation.

Right behind this little area is a small area where there where hardly any weeds. In this spot the potato plants are very small and full of holes. Here the Colorado potato beetle has done its thing.

I do have to point out that we did not look for the beetle in this bed. It is interesting to see that the potato plants which are standing free have problems with pests and the potato plants which where hidden between the weeds are looking so much better and have no problems with pests.

The colorado potato beetle is multiplying

A lot of times we find colorado potato beetles that are mating. That obviously is followed by them laying eggs and from those eggs come larva.

The Colorado potato beetle is back again

I already was on the look out for it

I have been checking my potatoes regularly and everything was Ok until today (Friday 3.6.2022). I wanted to sow something between the potatoes, on the hill beds, which where left in the ground last year and have sprouted and grown beautifully, but left some bare spots. I was happy to see a predator beetle, but at the same time I saw it. The first Colorado potato beetle of this year. So I called the kids to me for help und surged all of the potatoes and found a lot of beetles. Luckily the kids are not disgusted by the beetles and where a great help taking the beetles away from the beds and crushing them. So from today we will be surging for the Colorado potato beetle first thing every day.

Furthermore we have seen that the potatoes are short before going to bloom. That means the early varieties can be harvested soon. We are looking forward to that.

Supplement:

The next day I got the predator beetle in front of the camera and the potatoes already bloomed. Furthermore we found a hand full of Colorado potato beetle again and also found there eggs already.