Asparagus Beetle alert!

Asparagus Beetle Alert and New potatoes for Easter Sunday Lunch

 

My beautiful and very productive, three year old crab apple tree,

pardon the compost bin in the foreground, it is one of my three bird tables on my plot - well! you've got to look after them and I can't feed them at home - I have 4 cats.           

It seems odd, in April, in England, to be praying for rain. When I was at my plot earlier today, a few darkish clouds drifted over and definitely some spots of rain fell, I swear it. The forecast is predicting heavy rain and thunderstorms for Easter Saturday. But we shall see. I’m sure gardeners, farmers and commercial growers are, like me, praying for an end to this prolonged dry spell – it must be six weeks or more now since we’ve had any appreciable amount of rain. Trying to dig my plot is like digging bricks. Although I understand that holiday-makers want a sunny warm Easter weekend, we will, holiday makers and growers alike, have to deal with what we get. As a gardener I feel that, whatever the weather, it is good for something.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been watching out for asparagus beetle. We only seem to get the common variety on our plots, at least, they are the only ones I’ve seen. Unfortunately, my asparagus has now grown beyond the eating stage so, for me, the harvest is over for this year. I planted some new crowns last year and hopefully, I will be able to harvest a few from them next spring.

Today my beetle watch was rewarded, if I can use that expression. I found three on one fern. I’m reasonably sure this is their first visit this year. When I went to warn a neighbour of their possible presence we found a good half dozen on her plants. These numbers are nothing. They are the vanguard. I didn’t have my camera with me today but, later I will try to get photographs of the beetles, their eggs and larvae and will put them into another blog.

For those of you who have not come across asparagus beetle – they are approximately ¼” or just over ½cm in length. They are quite colourful – black head, and abdomen with bright orange/red thorax and wing cases decorated with six bright white dots. I understand the spotted beetles are similar with more white dots (but, I have not seen them). They lay hundreds (nay! thousands) of tiny black eggs attached to the lower sides of the asparagus ferns which hatch into very unattractive larvae within a week approx. – though doubtless their mothers think they are beautiful. It is the larvae which do the damage and really, they do massive damage. Left to their own devices they will strip the ferns of your asparagus plants which then die back, causing your crowns to fail for the following year.

All is not lost, however. Unless you are totally swamped by the little pests, just pick them off as you see them and, if you can bear to do it, crush them in your hands (they are quite hard and will require some force). Otherwise go equipped with a container of soapy water and drop them into it. If you really have a plague of them, I have found that they don’t much like Derris powder – unfortunately this has now been banned but, if you do happen to have some left over, it does work quite well. For the larvae, I have been picking them off and crushing them. This is not a nice job. I advise, if you are going to try this method, that you wear rubber gloves – ugh! It has been suggested that if you just brush them off, using a soft brush, they will actually die before they can get back to the plant – perhaps I will try that this year.

The best method, as always, is prevention. On allotments that is almost impossible to achieve as they have probably already been hibernating in the soil that you have inherited and will move in from others’ plots but, you can limit the possible damage for next year. More advice on this later in the year.

Well this has been a fairly negative Blog, sorry about that – sometimes necessary – but, the good news is that I’m now harvesting early potatoes from my polytunnel. They’re not huge – about egg size – but, so delicious as only freshly dug potatoes can be. Mine are Accent - 1st earlies, bought from Dobies. I’ll have some on Easter Sunday with my leg of lamb, fresh mint and the last of the overwintered cauliflowers.

Happy Easter everyone!   :o)