Let me preface this whole thing by letting you know right away I HATE BUGS, not all bugs, but definitely most bugs. They give me the heebie jeebies, I don’t know if its the amount of legs or if its the exoskeleton on some of them, or the fact that they seem like they would kill me if they were my size, I don’t know but I do know that they are gross and I don’t want them on me. Despite all of that as long as they are not eating all of my garden I am cool with them hanging around as long as they don’t touch me. Unfortunately they don’t always follow my rules so when they do start eating my garden we have a problem. I don’t like using pesticides, our main forms of pest control is diatomaceous earth, home made insecticidal soap, sometimes neem oil although I don’t love it and then the one I hate but I do the most; hand picking. Yes, hand picking off disgusting weird little bugs and either squishing them or knocking them into a soap water solution. It’s gross and it works. Nobody wants to hand pick bugs and I am among that group of people, I would prefer to have a pest free garden with pristine veggies without a leaf bitten but unfortunately that’s just not a reality and if you don't have bugs in your garden you aren't building a healthy ecosystem for which your plants can grow in! We need bugs, we just need to learn how to balance the good with the bad.
Hand picking is gross but can be an incredibly effect form of controlling your pest. A few years ago we started to notice changes in our asparagus, they appeared stressed and not their healthiest form. I started noticing red and black beetles. More and more showed up until the tops looked almost polka dotted. I didn’t really know what they were but tried my usuals; soapy water solution, diatomaceous earth but had not luck. They were everywhere and had no plans on going anywhere. So I googled “red and black beetle on asparagus” and wouldn’t you guess, they are called asparagus beetle or Crioceris Duodecimpunctata (but we are definitely calling them asparagus beetle) and neither soapy water sprayed on them nor diatomaceous earth are going to do a great job at getting rid of them but one good way is hand picking them, great… I started bringing a dish of soapy water out with me to the garden and as I walked I knocked them in, they were surprisingly easy to drop in and surprisingly sneaky moving to the opposite side of the stem to hide but it started to work, they were unable to get out of the the dish and less and less beetles were present each night. Well crap, I guess it does work.
At first when I thought of hand picking I just felt like I was an ant trying to attack a castle, I felt useless and like it was never going to work but for home gardeners this is a perfectly disgusting and effective solution I found. I learned that It’s more than just picking up individual bugs, it’s disrupting the life cycle, it’s slowing the breeding, creating gaps in the cycle and with continuous monitoring it can save a crop from being overrun. I also thought this would be pretty time consuming but again I didn’t think it was too bad in reality, I don’t know too many gardeners that aren’t out in the garden either just enjoying the space or doing some chores. I spent about 10-15 minutes for 3 nights and then after that I do it maybe 1-2 times a week now to keep up with it. At first I was very grossed out, I would freak out if one came flying at me but I’m getting better although it never fails, I always feel like somethings crawling on me when I’m around bugs even if there’s not. One thing though I would say is you should be able to properly identify your bug. Google is like a magician, you can write just about any combination of descriptive words and it will find you that bug. Knowing what bug you're dealing with is key to knowing when you are going to have to start to look for them. For me asparagus beetle, ever so conveniently shows its face right about when your asparagus is ready to be harvested, waiting too long and I could have a large population to contend with rather than if I get them during their early breeding season I can really cut down on numbers early. It will also help you be able to identify how and when best to pick certain bugs. An example is squash bugs, they love to find a sheltered spot to hide under at night so if you lay a wooden board down at the base of a plant in the evening you can flip that board the next morning and find a pile of squash bugs congregating underneath ready to be squished, where as I find asparagus beetles are best caught in the evening just at du, they can be knocked into a container of soapy water easily. Writing this info down as you learn it is helpful to reference back but as the years go by you will notice your pests patterns if you play close attention.
So now I pick bugs and I still find them really gross but I’m a lot more comfortable around them than I used to be and that in part is due to the fact that it just works. I have found first hand that hand picking pests to be incredibly effective. Sure, sometimes I lose my shit when I think there’s a June bug in my hair, sometimes a bug will fall out of my hair in the shower and its really gross and I still hate bugs but that’s gardening my friends. If you aren’t willing to get used to having bugs on or around you than you better get out of the dirt.
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