Grasshoppers eating the tomatoes!

[js85]

Ugh... I thought it was cute that we had hundreds of grasshoppers making a community in our garden. Until I discovered we're losing half of our tomatoes to them! What can we do? I noticed a new infiltration of spiders setting up shop, but I'm not sure they'll take care of the problem.

 

[Chuck]

Ugh... I thought it was cute that we had hundreds of grasshoppers making a community in our garden. Until I discovered we're losing half of our tomatoes to them! What can we do? I noticed a new infiltration of spiders setting up shop, but I'm not sure they'll take care of the problem.

There isn't too much you can do about grasshoppers if they are in the mature stage. You can spray and kill the ones in your garden but another wave of them will quickly take their place. There is an organic product that is effective against them in their juvenile forms called NoLo bait. Grasshoppers are canabalistic and when one is sick the others will attack and eat it and they will get sick and so on. But only when they are small. I only know of one thing to rid your garden of grasshoppers and that is a flock of Guinea Fowl.

 

[Gardener]

I haven't had too many problems with regular grasshoppers, but I have seen Locusts. I believe locusts are simply grasshoppers that get a lot more protein and become aggressive, as a result. Something has been lurking in the garden and eating away at my fruits and vegetables, but it's not an animal. I think that the locusts are the problem in my garden, maybe it could be locusts instead of grasshoppers in your garden.

 

[Chuck]

I haven't had too many problems with regular grasshoppers, but I have seen Locusts. I believe locusts are simply grasshoppers that get a lot more protein and become aggressive, as a result. Something has been lurking in the garden and eating away at my fruits and vegetables, but it's not an animal. I think that the locusts are the problem in my garden, maybe it could be locusts instead of grasshoppers in your garden.

Locusts and grasshopper are two different pests. Locusts are a short time problem and grasshoppers are there for the duration

 

[claudine]

I love grasshoppers
They live in my garden too, but they don't seem to like my tomatoes and my other vegetables. To be honest, I have no idea what they feed on. Usually, they hide in my flower beds.

 

[SamClemensMT]

I kid you not, I came across a

I love grasshoppers
They live in my garden too, but they don't seem to like my tomatoes and my other vegetables. To be honest, I have no idea what they feed on. Usually, they hide in my flower beds.

I kid you not, I came across a grasshopper the other day, and I had the same thought. It was a second thought, though. My first thought was to keep him as a pet, but then it occurred to me that I wouldn't know what to feed it.

 

[marlingardener]

There are something like 119 types of grasshoppers, and they all live and breed in Texas, specifically in my gardens. Ghastly little critters that aren't deterred by organic sprays (yum, garlic spray!) or netting (look, grasshopper hammocks!) or spiders (Hi, neighbor!). Guinea hens will take care of an infestation, but then guineas are an infestation in their own right.

 

[Chuck]

There are something like 119 types of grasshoppers, and they all live and breed in Texas, specifically in my gardens. Ghastly little critters that aren't deterred by organic sprays (yum, garlic spray!) or netting (look, grasshopper hammocks!) or spiders (Hi, neighbor!). Guinea hens will take care of an infestation, but then guineas are an infestation in their own right.

I think that grasshoppers have a mind of their own. They invade my garden for a week or two and then decide to go attack yours and when they tire of yours they hop over to Dripping Springs and chew up R.R. garden. The only thing that I have found to reduce their numbers is to have a wide swath of weeds around the perimeter of my garden. I still get a bunch though. I bought one of those pump type water gun rifles and fill it with a strong solution of dishwashing soap. Then I go on grasshopper patrol. Give a grasshopper a good blast and it is all over for him. Takes about 90 seconds. This doesn't deplete the grasshoppers much but at least it makes me feel better.

 

[claudine]

I kid you not, I came across a

I kid you not, I came across a grasshopper the other day, and I had the same thought. It was a second thought, though. My first thought was to keep him as a pet, but then it occurred to me that I wouldn't know what to feed it.

When I was a child, I tried to keep two big, green grasshoppers as pets. I found a terrarium for them and I gave them many different types of food, but they didn't want to eat anything So I set them free after a few days, because I was worried that they may die of hunger.

 

[Maria]

Ugh... I thought it was cute that we had hundreds of grasshoppers making a community in our garden. Until I discovered we're losing half of our tomatoes to them! What can we do? I noticed a new infiltration of spiders setting up shop, but I'm not sure they'll take care of the problem.

I found a huge grasshopper on a lettuce, it was probably a locust. I have a commercial greenhouse, so I have been trying to keep the grasshoppers in check by killing the weeds around outside walls of the greenhouse. Fortunately, lettuce is a short-term crop so the damage is minimal. I personally would use a pesticide for tomatoes. Follow the directions and don't consume the tomatoes for the recommended time. I don't use much pesticide, just on the weeds. I spray the weeds and when they dry out I throw them away to avoid run-off into the local water shed.

 

[Chuck]

And when it rains where does all those chemicals end up where you have just srayed? When those weeds dry up do those chemicals disappear? The chemicals in those herbicides are formulated to bond together for a period of time. After that period of time is up and they are no longer bonded do they go poof and no longer exist or are they all still there and just benign? And pesticides on tomatoes? Why on earth would you do that when there are much better, more effective, completely safe and cheaper organic pesticides available?

 

[Maria]

I would do it to get rid of the bugs, before they got the whole tomato plant. There aren't completely safe and cheaper organic pesticides here in the developing world. The weeds I poison are recovered and dumped in the trash. They go to the dump, unfortunately we don't have toxic waste dumps here either. That's the best I can do.

I don't use pesticides in the greenhouse on the lettuce, which is also why I do hydroponic lettuce, much less prone to bugs. And one of the driving forces behind the greenhouse is to give an example of innovative, less toxic methods of agriculture. Less water, less fertilizer, no pesticides.

I have to admit though the reason I don't grow tomatoes is because of the bugs. I used to have some outdoors, and the bugs and diseases were overwhelming. So I asked someone at the local farmer's market, a huge weekend event (not organic) how they did it. Says he, "Oh, I must of sprayed them at least six times." I don't go to the market very often after that. Nowadays I buy most of my vegetables at Walmart, because I know they support farmers using better agricultural practices and even have tomato greenhouses. The original funding was from the Millennium Challenge (George Bush). See how the money circles back to the US. The US funds the farmers and the roads to get the produce to market, to Walmart. Unfortunately, I don't have any other choice for healthy eating.

Also, I probably wouldn't eat the larger tomatoes if I sprayed them. I'd wait for the smaller ones to grow.

 

[Chuck]

I would do it to get rid of the bugs, before they got the whole tomato plant. There aren't completely safe and cheaper organic pesticides here in the developing world. The weeds I poison are recovered and dumped in the trash. They go to the dump, unfortunately we don't have toxic waste dumps here either. That's the best I can do.

I don't use pesticides in the greenhouse on the lettuce, which is also why I do hydroponic lettuce, much less prone to bugs. And one of the driving forces behind the greenhouse is to give an example of innovative, less toxic methods of agriculture. Less water, less fertilizer, no pesticides.

I have to admit though the reason I don't grow tomatoes is because of the bugs. I used to have some outdoors, and the bugs and diseases were overwhelming. So I asked someone at the local farmer's market, a huge weekend event (not organic) how they did it. Says he, "Oh, I must of sprayed them at least six times." I don't go to the market very often after that. Nowadays I buy most of my vegetables at Walmart, because I know they support farmers using better agricultural practices and even have tomato greenhouses. The original funding was from the Millennium Challenge (George Bush). See how the money circles back to the US. The US funds the farmers and the roads to get the produce to market, to Walmart. Unfortunately, I don't have any other choice for healthy eating.

Also, I probably wouldn't eat the larger tomatoes if I sprayed them. I'd wait for the smaller ones to grow.

There are only 2 pesticides that you will ever need and you can get them online. They are both extremely effective. I don't know how large your operation is but I can't imagine using more than a pint of either during a season in your greenhouse. These pesticides are Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) and Spinosad which is made from a soil bacteria. The Bt is for caterpillars only, the spinosad for everything else including caterpillars. It is effective on caterpillars just not as effective as Bt.. As far as grasshoppers go there isn't really much you can do as they are continually on the move from one place to the next. I have an outdoor garden and I do the opposite of you. I have found it more effective to have weeds surrounding my garden, the theory being they will eat the weeds more than my vegetables. There is no effective pesticide, chemical or organic against them. In a greenhouse situation it would probably be more effective to put up screen wire on all of the openings.

 

[Maria]

Thanks Chuck. I don't use pesticides inside the greenhouse. Fortunately, lettuce is a short-term crop. The greenhouse, 3000 sq. ft., is screened in, but there were a lot of little green grasshoppers in the weeds around it, and they were getting in. I would just catch and release them when I could. Getting rid of the weeds helped a lot though. There is Bacillus subtilis here, but that I think I used for root rot, I don't remember exactly. Currently I just use Trichoderma, it works great for the root rot in hydroponic lettuce, they are as white as can be, but I will look for the Bt. Thanks again.

 

[David Cerboni]

Get ghost peppers (they are extremely hot) and simmer them in hot but not boiling water for twenty minutes. Let the water cool down enough to pour into a large spray bottle. I would recommend using a funnel. Of course you want to strain out the peppers with cheese cloth or something. Once the contents are in the spray bottle, spray as much of this stuff as you can on your plants. The capsicum in the water from the chili will deter almost every living insect, including some mammals. Once it rains though, you will have to repeat this process.