Beware the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug
- On January 11, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Bugs
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Last weekend I saw my first brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys). It was dead and tacked down to a white cushion inside of a small glass and wood box, but it was real. And it was ugly.
The bug was part of a Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) display on invasive insects at DaVinci Fest, a science and art fair for 4th – 12th graders my husband, Mike, and I went to last weekend to promote my new gardening book. Ordinarily, we’d steer clear of kid-centric events, but our friend Paula invited us and with boxes of books taking up space in our basement, we figured we’d buck up and go.
“There will be lots of adults there who are interested in gardening,” Paula told us, sweetening the pot by saying she would set us up with a table next to an avid bee keeper. It’s always interesting to talk to people who keep bees and A.J. Moses of Oakdale, Minnesota, was no exception. Check out this recent interview with him in the OakdalePatch.
Credit: Stephen Ausmus
As it turned out, Mark, the nice MDA entomologist with the stink bug, was on our other side. “These aren’t a big problem yet, but they’re here now and they may be,” he explained, holding up the bug display box so he could point out the differences between Minnesota’s native stink bugs and this new invader.
If you think all those brown, kind of flat, triangular-shaped stink bugs look the same, think again. Brown marmorated stink bugs have white markings on their abdomens and light-colored bands on their otherwise dark antennae.
Like Japanese beetles, emerald ash borer and other invasive pests that have found their way into the U.S. and, eventually, Minnesota in recent years, the brown marmorated stink bug is likely to cause problems for a wide variety of plants once they become widespread. They particularly enjoy feeding on fruit trees, some vegetables and soybeans. Oh, and true to their name, they sink to high heaven if you disturb them enough to release their stench.
Having just spent last summer battling our first all-out infestation by Japanese beetles, I’m less than thrilled to learn that these stink bugs (which are native to Asia) were spotted in our county in November for the first time. I guess we’re gonna need a whole lot more buckets of soapy water and some nose plugs (Japanese beetles don’t smell so hot either).
The Heirloom Life Gardener
If you don’t already grow your own food, the gorgeous photos in this book alone will make you want to. But what I enjoyed most about The Heirloom Life Gardener was Jere Gettle’s wise, warm voice, which made this book read like a conversation with a longtime gardener friend who knows way, way more about seeds than I ever will.
Dubbed “the Indiana Jones of Seeds” by New York Times Magazine, Gettle is well known in organic gardening circles for running the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company with his wife Emilee.
Their book, written with Meghan Sutherland, offers a lot of great hands-on advice for growing 50 different heirloom vegetables, as well as tips for disease control and seed saving. (Check out page 203 for great visuals on saving tomato seeds.) But there are also a lot of fascinating stories about things like how plants got their names, how certain vegetables became popular and, of course, how Jere developed his passion for heirloom seeds.
Read More»Growing Herbs Indoors
- On November 30, 2011
- By Meleah
- In Container Gardening, Herbs, Indoor Gardening
- 0
One of the things I love most about summer is having an herb garden right outside my back door. Oregano, basil, dill, tarragon, sage, lavender, parsley and several kinds of thyme are right there ready to snip and toss into soup, salad or whatever we’re making, anytime. Sadly, having fresh herbs at the ready is just a six-month pleasure here in the Arctic, so in recent years I’ve been trying to grow herbs indoors once the weather starts to turn cold. I say “trying” because, honestly, it has been a bit trying, literally. But I’ve worked out some kinks and I’d like to share what I’ve learned with you now.
By far, the biggest challenge when growing herbs indoors is lighting. I’ve read, and people have told me, that it’s possible to grow some herbs fairly well in a sunny window. I say those people don’t live in Minnesota in the winter — or maybe they try to see the good in spindly plants where I’m more in the “off with their spider-mite-infested heads” camp. There is one exception: chives. Chives do last a long time when grown in a sunny spot, and you can snip off what you need for months as long as you leave at least 2 inches of growth on the plant.
Read More»Plant Trees Now—And Be Sure to Water Them
- On September 19, 2011
- By Meleah
- In Soil, Trees and Shrubs
- 0
Everyone talks about spring being the best time to plant trees and that is true, usually. But fall is also a great time for tree planting as long as you don’t choose birch, firs, oaks and most fruit trees. Those do best when they get a spring start for reasons that are not really understood, though some think it has something to do with tree’s root systems. Trees with a large taproot that grows deep into the soil — rather than a network of finer roots closer to the surface — should not be planted in the fall, they say.
I’ll just add that my own completely unscientific research confirms that birch do better when planted in the spring. I have three birch trees, well, two now. The survivors were planted in the spring and the dead one was planted in the fall. It kicked the bucket in less than two years, which is when I Googled to find out what was up and discovered that I probably sentenced the poor thing to an early death by snapping it up at a fall plant sale and putting it in the ground.
Read More»Some Things To Know About Japanese Beetles
- On August 22, 2011
- By Meleah
- In Bugs, Organic Gardening, Perennials
- 0
For five years now I’ve fussed over bare-root sprigs and cuttings of Virginia creeper, nursing them into the lush vines that now cover three arbors and a couple of fences at my house. This week, I started ripping all those vines out because, sadly, Japanese beetles just love Virginia creeper. For a while, my husband and I thought we could live with the damage the beetles do —all those green leaves reduced to lacy brown ghosts of their former selves. But when scads of beetles and showers of the dust-like poo they leave behind started raining down from the arbor into our hair every time we shut the back gate, well, goodbye vines.
For those who aren’t familiar with Japanese beetles, they are actually quite fetching little bugs. Dime-sized with shiny purple-green bodies, they almost look like something a wacked-out artificial intelligence researcher would create in a sci-fi film. First spotted in 1968 in Minnesota, as well as on the East Coast, Japanese beetles have since plagued eastern states, primarily, while slowly making their way westward. Larvae, or grubs as they’re usually called, feed on the roots of turf grass and adult beetles feed on a wide variety of ornamental plants.
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