Folk remedies for the Colorado potato beetle

Content

1 Basic Rules
2 Herbal infusions to combat beetles
3 Ash, mustard and other methods of combating the Colorado potato beetle
4 Collecting beetles with a special device
5 Vodka for bugs
6 Prevention of Colorado potato beetles
7 Conclusion

Colorado beetle - This is the main enemy of potatoes and all gardeners. Such small bugs can destroy almost all potatoes in a matter of days. Manufacturers of chemicals promise to save the harvest, but at the same time, these substances greatly harm human health. Nevertheless, it is necessary to fight beetles. In addition, it is very important to carry out timely prevention of beetles in the spring. All this can be done using folk remedies. Over the years, our ancestors tried various methods pest control. Let's listen to their experience and consider various folk remedies for Colorado potato beetle on potatoes.

Basic Rules

Many will agree that using chemicals is easier and faster. But we should not forget about the harm they cause to our health. Many gardeners use only folk remedies to combat beetles. After all, what’s the point in saving the crop from pests, but poisoning yourself with chemicals? Fighting methods must be safe!

Since Colorado potato beetles have been living in our area for quite some time, gardeners have managed to come up with and test a large number of effective ways to combat them.They made sure that these products were completely harmless to the environment and health.

It is important to follow three basic rules:

The weather during processing of bushes should be dry and windless.
The scorching sun reduces the potency of the infusions. It is better to use solutions in the evening.
It is necessary to process potatoes every week, otherwise the effectiveness of the procedures will greatly decrease.

Herbal infusions to combat beetles

Natural remedies can be prepared from common herbs. For example, wormwood, celandine, horsetail and dandelion are perfect. Infusions are prepared as follows:

Wormwood is crushed and placed in a container in such an amount that it occupies a third of the bucket or barrel. Then the container is completely filled with water. After 3 days, the infusion will need to be filtered and you can start spraying the beds against beetles.
The prepared and crushed celandine is placed in a pan and filled with water in the same proportion as in the first case. Then the celandine should be boiled for 15 minutes. Next, the solution is allowed to cool and diluted with water. To do this, pour half a liter of the prepared broth into 10 liters of water.
Take 200 grams of dandelion and horsetail per bucket of water, chop the plants and place them in a container. Then the plants are filled with water. The infusion is boiled for 15 minutes, then cooled and diluted. As in the previous case, half a liter of such a decoction will require 10 liters of water. Then the potatoes are treated for beetles.

It is necessary to begin processing with such means immediately after the potatoes sprout. The procedure is repeated every week, only in this case it will be possible to achieve the best result.

Attention! 3 weeks before harvesting potatoes, you should stop spraying the bushes against the Colorado potato beetle.

In addition to the plants listed above, you can use regular walnuts. Unripe fruits and leaves are suitable for this. To prepare the solution you will need:

1 kg of walnut leaves;
1 kg chopped green fruits;
10 liters of boiling water.

All components are mixed and left for a week to allow the mixture to infuse. Then the infusion is filtered and used to spray potatoes against beetles.

Ash, mustard and other methods of combating the Colorado potato beetle

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Some substances that do an excellent job of fighting beetles are always at hand. Probably every housewife has vinegar, laundry soap and mustard. Let's look at how you can prepare an excellent remedy against the Colorado potato beetle using such simple ingredients.

The most popular mixtures are:

For the first preparation you will need half a liter of vinegar, 100 grams of regular soda and 10 liters of water. The first step is to combine vinegar and baking soda. Then the mixture is poured with water and, immediately, they go to spray the area.
The following product is prepared on the basis of laundry soap. One piece of soap should be dissolved in 10 liters of water and added to the mixture of hot pepper (100 grams). Then the solution is left for a couple of hours to infuse. After this, you can start spraying the potatoes.
For the third preparation you will need dry mustard (about one kilogram). It is dissolved in a bucket of water and 100 ml of vinegar is added there. Mustard works well against the Colorado potato beetle in potato beds.

In addition, ordinary cement can be used for these purposes.It is very easy to use, you do not need to mix it with anything or dissolve it in anything. The required amount of cement is poured into gauze and the potato bushes are sprinkled with the substance.

Important! For convenience, the gauze bag should be tied to a stick.

Also, many gardeners use ash to combat the Colorado potato beetle. There are several options for how it can be used:

1 kg of wood ash is dissolved in 10 liters of water. The mixture is placed on the fire and brought to a boil. Then the solution is left to cool completely in a warm room. There it must remain for at least 2 days. After this, the mixture is filtered and 40 grams of laundry soap are added. Another 10 liters of water are poured into this solution. Now you can start spraying potato plants against the Colorado potato beetle.
Some gardeners simply add a little ash to the hole when planting potatoes. Immediately before hilling the bushes, it is necessary to sprinkle the soil around the potatoes with ash.
In addition to the soil, you can sprinkle the bushes themselves with ash. Birch ash is best suited for these purposes. Potatoes are pollinated with it every 2 weeks. The procedure should be repeated three times.

In the same way, you can pollinate potato bushes using red pepper or tobacco dust. Insects really do not like such substances, so they will quickly disappear from your area. As you can see, it is not necessary to spray to fight the Colorado potato beetle. There are no less effective, but very simple methods.

Collecting beetles with a special device

A practical device for collecting bugs and larvae can be made from a regular sugar bag. The first step is to make a cut along the side seam. The upper hole, on the contrary, should be sewn up.Now loops are made along the entire edge of the hole. A thin wire is passed through them, the length of which is from 2.5 to 3 meters. The wire is then bent and the ends twisted into a handle shape.

This device is very easy to use. The bag is put on the potato bush and shaken a little. All the beetles that are on it simply fall into the net. After each row of potatoes passed, the beetles should be poured into a bucket. Thus, you do not need to constantly carry the container with you and manually shake each bug into it.

Vodka for bugs

To carry out this procedure, you should purchase vodka. Moreover, the worse its quality, the better the result will be. So you can safely choose the cheapest burnt vodka. It is poured into a small jar and 10 beetles collected from different parts of the garden are thrown into it.

Attention! It is necessary to ensure that the beetles do not drown, but simply drink too much vodka.

Then the beetles are released back into the potato plot. Oddly enough, but after this all the pests leave the garden. The fact is that alcohol is poisonous to insects. Colorado beetles simply go crazy after consuming so much of the substance. It is necessary to release insects into their original place in order to scare away the remaining bugs. Despite the strangeness of this method, it really works.

Prevention of Colorado potato beetles

For prevention, you can plant some types of plants on the site that beetles simply cannot tolerate. Suitable for this:

calendula or marigolds. Seeds are sown around the site or in rows;
beans and beans. These plants are planted together with potatoes in one hole. Thanks to this, the level of nitrogen in the soil increases, which repels pests;
garlic (spring).It has a pungent odor that beetles simply cannot stand.

It is also necessary to monitor when the bugs begin to lay eggs. During this period, it is necessary to hill up the bushes. Thus, the plants will receive the necessary amount of oxygen, which will help fight eggs and small larvae.

It is very good to loosen the soil frequently. At a certain period, the larvae burrow into the ground in order to form a cocoon and turn into an adult beetle. At this stage, the larvae are very sensitive and defenseless. Even ordinary loosening of the soil in a potato bed can destroy a large number of bugs.

Advice! As you know, beetles burrow into the ground for the winter. Therefore, in the fall you should dig up the area for planting potatoes. Thus, a large number of beetles will remain on the surface of the ground and simply freeze when winter comes.

Conclusion

This article showed that protecting potatoes from beetles does not necessarily have to be done with chemicals. Proven folk methods are perfect for this. For example, you can prepare a mustard, soap or vinegar solution. Also, many gardeners use the manual method of collecting insects. For this purpose, you can build special devices. In general, there are quite a few methods for treating potatoes against the Colorado potato beetle. Each gardener can independently choose and check any of them.