[Arid_gardener]grasshoppers

[Dick]

If it is any consolation, Jean, I moved to the Valley in 1968 and have had 
an active garden with numerous species and varieties but, while I see an 
ocassional grasshopper, I have never had a problem with the critters nor 
have I known anyone up to now to complain about them in 40 years in the 
valley and membership in two national garden clubs with chapters here. The 
criters do not particuladly like the climate, perhaps. I am the principle 
gardener caring for a densely planted Subtropical Demonstration garden at 
the U of A Maricopa County Cooperative Extension. I can't remember seeing a 
single grasshopper there in eleven years. We have never used any chemical 
except Ammonium Sulfate fertilizer there.

I have noticed however, that preditory insects attack any plant species that 
happens to be in a state of decline. I have never seen a healthy plant 
overcome by grasshoppers. In 1936 during the great drought, in a trip from 
Nebraska to California, we saw grasshoppers stacked up two feet deep behind 
barracades errected to stop them. The roads were so slick from their 
squashed bodies on the pavement it was like driving on ice. The stench was 
awful.

Insects attack by choice any plant that is already sick with disease or 
weakened from lack of water or both. Preditory animals do the same, preying 
on the weak. The best defense in most cicumstances is to keep your plants 
and garden healthy and well fed. Aside from composted mulch, keep the 
grounds well groomed and observe reco'd spacing of plants.

In your local, it might also help if a ten foot wide bare space is cleared 
around your garden if that plan is feasible.

Dick Gross, Master Gardener Volunteer, University of Arizona
Maricopa County Cooperative Extension
Sec/Ed Arizona Rare Fruit Growers
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tyler Storey" <tyler at tylerstorey.com>
To: <drjean at cox.net>; <arid_gardener at Ag.arizona.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 7:46 PM
Subject: RE: [Arid_gardener]grasshoppers


> 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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