Five Tips for Cucumber Beetle Control
Mulch
One of the first things you can do to control cucumber beetles is to put down heavy mulching around your plants. This will prevent adults from moving between plants and also keep them from laying their eggs near the plants.
Repellent
Another option for cucumber beetle control is to plant certain types of plants in your gardens. These insects don't like them, so they'll avoid them. Suitable plants include catnip, radish, and broccoli. You can also put onion skins around your plants to keep the insects at bay.
Predators
One of the next things you can do for cucumber beetle control is to introduce various types of insects to your garden. Certain insects prey on these beetles and will help keep their numbers down. These predator insects include Tachnid flies, Braconid wasps, and soldier beetles.
There are also predators you can introduce to target the beetle's eggs. Ladybugs and lacewigs are suitable for this purpose. If you want to, you could also build a bat habitat because they also prey on cucumber beetles.
Vacuum
If you have the time, you could simply vacuum the beetles off of your plants. You can use a standard portable vacuum or a corded design with a nozzle as long as it's long enough to reach. The best time to vacuum the beetles is in the late afternoon.
Traps
One of the final methods of cucumber beetle control is the use of sticky traps. They're simply to make yourself, since you just need a piece of cardboard and a simple adhesive. You can even reuse the traps by scraping the dead ones off.
These are a few tips for cucumber beetle control. One of the simplest things you can do is put down a lot of mulch around your plants. You could also try introducing various predator insects to keep the beetle population under control.
Published by D Swain
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