Battling the Potato Bugs

One of my dreams is to become adept at homesteading. I would love to have a diverse and productive vegetable garden to enjoy in the summer, with enough left over to preserve and enjoy throughout the winter. It's an idealistic dream for a simpler time, and a wish for nutritious, organic food. Sometimes, I think it could be a good way to help support my family without having to go out and get a desk job.

My family has had a modest garden for three years now. We have grown lettuce, sweet peas, tomatoes, green beans, zucchinis, broccoli, radishes, onions, and potatoes. Each year we have had varying degrees of success depending on the vegetable. The first year our chickens jumped through the "chicken moat" fencing and ate our lettuce and hollowed out the tomatoes while they were still on the vine. They also pulled out the onions just for fun, but at least they ate the potato bugs without damaging the potato plants.

Last year we moved our garden out of the chickens' reach but it was too hot for lettuce and broccoli. The one crop that has grown reliably well every year is potatoes, so we have expanded our crop each year. Potatoes are also an attractive crop because they preserved easily in our basement last winter inside a wax coated cardboard box. We still had potatoes into the spring, though I bought plenty at the store too.

But with potatoes, come potato bugs. Fat and ugly little creatures that munch on the leaves. Recently I was out in the garden with a friend and our respective children when she noticed that the potato plants were covered in bugs. What to do? I do not like touching bugs.

Potato bugs on leaves, big and small

I grabbed a plastic bucket from the sandbox, rested it underneath each potato plant and shook the bugs into the bucket. Plunk, plunk, plunk. Thank goodness they can't fly. 

"Hey boys, who wants to come feed these bugs to the chickens with me?" I called to my son and his friend. They excitedly came to watch as I poured the bucket out in the chicken yard. Silly, spoiled birds that they are, they eyed the bugs warily and kept on scratching in the weeds no where near the creepy crawlies. So the boys and I stomped on the bugs, burying them in the dusty dirt. The boys enjoyed it so I went back to the garden and collected more potato bugs. This time I dumped them out on the concrete patio for the boys to stomp on--instant entertainment for three year old boys, and a chemical free way to battle the potato bugs that didn't involve me squishing them myself. I will have to step up my game if my homesteading garden dream is to become reality, but it's a start.

My son mid-stomp