Fucking Japanese Beetles!!

I knew it! I knew they’d be back! Little fuckers!! Sonofabitch! Fucking Japanese Beetles. Grrr.

These little assholes are beautiful. I mean, really. Look at it. So shimmery and glittery, and fuzzy with stripes! If it wasn’t such a beastly torment to my (and everyone else’s) garden, I might could find it beautiful without being disgusted, like I do for the 350,000 other beautiful and fascinating beetle species.

But these little shitters rain destruction on your garden, and for me, that’s crossing the LINE. I don’t mind sharing a bit with wildlife, but these guys aren’t interested in sharing. They want to OWN my green beans.

I had my first round of these bloody wankers last summer, when after only a few days, the top crown of leaves on my pole bean teepee was laced through (like that far right pic above) and dying. When I started looking carefully at the leaves, I screamed like the geeky guy in a horror flick.

Cuz eeeewwwwwww. They bunch all up. So you flip over a leaf and KABLAM! A whole facefull of beetles! And as if that’s not bad enough, the little pigfuckers fly, too!! So I’m not even exaggerating!

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Ugg.

So I did what I do (research) and discovered that Japanese Beetles are lovely little invaders from another country. Bet you’ll never guess where. In their defense, it is probably not their fault they ended up here (in the U.S.); our two countries have been trading for ages, and these guys could easily have hitchhiked on all kinds of traveling vegetation.

They are an invasive species in Colorado, and they don’t have much predation in my suburban garden. In addition, they don’t respond to most insect repellants, deterrents, or insecticidal soap. As in, your weekly Neem oil ain’t gonna cut it. Plus, they can fly. So they can get away from you when you’re trying to pick them off and drop them into soapy water – which is the organic way to remove the little shits. And they’re big; at least as far as most garden pests go. They are easily half an inch long, which, combined with chowing together in a herd, makes them truly dangerous to the health of your plant. But at least they’re harmless to humans. Assuming you can ever sleep again after seeing your bean leaves covered in them.

They WILL, however, eat your veggies to death. Munching through leaves faster than you can pick them off. They don’t hurt the fruit, but without leaves, plants die.

AND. They overwinter right in your soil, so if you had a few this year, you’ll have even more next year!! Hooray!

The sucky part is that if you use a trap for them, you can actually make the problem worse because the traps attract the beetles from all around, potentially bringing your neighbor’s infestation into your garden, too. But, no pressure, if you have them and don’t get rid of them, they will keep spreading, right over into your neighbors’ gardens. Sigh.

Last summer, as I learned all about them, I chose to drown my Japanese Beetles in soapy water. I went out with my dead sexy purple rubber gloves and a big bowl of sudsy Dawn and warm water. Then I held the bowl under the leaf, and knocked those motherfuckers right in. And once they’re in the soapy water, they can’t fly out. Bummer. But sometimes they would fly away when I shook the leaf, so it was sometimes more effective to pick them off and commit insecticide manually. Barf.

But. Every time I picked them off into the soapy water, I’d find another one or two the next day.

And I’m really tired of fighting the pest fest. I’ve had an undue burden of pests in the last three years, and it’s affecting my garden joy. So this year, fuck the soapy water. I’m nuking the little bastards.

Say hello to my little friend:

Oh Yeah!! I did it. I sprayed those little shits. And I felt kinda bad about it. I felt worse knowing that I need to wait three days to harvest any of the beans because Sevin is the real deal. No snowflake-crunchy-granola-OMRI-certified-suggestion of an alternative living arrangement. Nope. This is garden napalm. Those buggers fell right off. And I’m leaving the carcasses wherever they land in the bean box, as a warning to others.

Muhuhahahaha!!!