[Arid_gardener]grasshoppers

[Tyler Storey]

Hi Jean,
Grasshoppers are notoriously difficult to control in a home garden.  By dint
of form and habit, they are nearly unassailable, so don't bother with
chemicals of any sort.  Anything you try to spray or sprinkle will at best
annoy the grasshoppers and at worst defeat the entire purpose of growing
vegetables at home by rendering your garden toxic.  Exclusion, short of a
solid enclosure, also won't work -- and of course anything that did work
would be excluding your pollinators also.  Birds, which will be excluded by
the bird netting, are among the few natural predators of 'hoppers.
Grasshoppers will if pressed eat nearly anything green, so the artichokes
may be in play as well.

Your primary defense against grasshoppers is a proper attitude.  There are
several that might prove effective, singly or in combination:
1)  Humility: Grasshoppers are the things that remind the gardener that no
matter how much we think we're in control of our gardens, Nature still has
the upper hand.  
2)  Camaraderie: An infestation of grasshoppers will prevent your exclusion
from those friendship-building conversations with other gardeners which are
predicated on gardening woes. 
3)  Vigilance: The possibility of grasshoppers will avert your being lulled
into gardening complacency by your wire, concrete, and netting.  
4)  Pride:  You will appreciate the vegetables that made it through the
danger ever so much more than any that simply plodded through unchallenged;
the Prodigal Vegetable, if you will.   

As a secondary defense, I highly recommend the scissors method, which I use
with some good effect in my own garden.  This involves keeping a good pair
of scissors by your side and using them to snip the offending critters in
two.  Barbaric, yes, but highly effective with only a little practice, and
an excellent method for keeping up your eye/hand coordination.  It works
best in the cool of the morning, when your intended targets are still
sluggish.  Once you develop an eye for spotting chewed leaves and then
tracing back along the stems to find the culprit, you'll find it's a snap. 

And lastly, on the off chance that you might consider raising chickens, you
can let your hens loose in the garden enclosure to do some of the snipping
for you, provided that you keep them away from tender seedlings.  Chickens
are pros at grasshopper nabbing.  This has the added advantage of providing
a steady supply of high-protein fresh eggs to go along with all your fresh
produce.  For added amusement, don't tell your breakfast guests what the
hens have been eating until after they bite into their eggs.  

I hope this helps,
Tyler

tyler at tylerstorey.com
http://tylerstorey.com
602-738-2978

-----Original Message-----
From: arid_gardener-bounces at CALS.arizona.edu
[mailto:arid_gardener-bounces at CALS.arizona.edu] On Behalf Of drjean at cox.net
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 11:52 PM
To: arid_gardener at Ag.arizona.edu
Subject: [Arid_gardener] Question from Home-Hort WWW page

Jean Hodgson
85635
drjean at cox.net

I am just beginning a vegetable garden in an newly enclosed 7 ft. tall chain
link fence (30' x 30').  It is protected on the ground near the outside of
the fence and a foot above the fence with chicken wire, and underneath the
gate is a strip of cement.  I will later put on bird netting.  You would
think this would protect the garden from animal predators.  But I forgot
about the grasshoppers!!!!

The garden is in a remote area about 12 miles southeast of Tombstone, in
Sunset Western Gardening Zone 10, and it is near a sacaton meadow that
during the summer is filled with grasshoppers 3 or more inches long.

The fence will not stop the grasshoppers, will it?  Will my garden be
decimated as after a horde of locusts descend? Is there anything I can do to
protect against these insects?

I also plan to plant artichokes outside the fence along the sacaton meadow.
Will grasshoppers get the artichokes, too?

Thanks.


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