Neem Oil vs. Asparagus Beetles: Round 1

It has become apparent that we just don’t have time to kill the asparagus beetles by hand. There are, literally, thousands of them…and only two of us. Two of us with full time jobs and plenty of other things to do besides standing in the sun pinching bugs to death. Even though we want to move as quickly as possible toward a solution, we looked at as many solutions (i.e. organic pesticides) as we could find. Calling on every expert we could think of, doing online research, etc.

My first instinct was to go with pyrethrum because it is marketed as being not only fast-acting and effective but also organic and non-toxic. Desperate to get rid of these beetles, that are doing significant damage that gets visibly worse every day, I thought something drastic like pyrethrum might be necessary. However, because pyrethrum also kills the parasitic insects that we want to cultivate and is apparently not as safe as its promoters might lead you to believe, we ruled that out.

I also talked to Marvin’s Garden who suggested Captain Jack’s Dead Bug Brew, made from bacteria harvested in a rum distillery in some Carribean country. The active ingredient is spinosad; it kills larvae immediately but does not harm parastitic insects, safe for animals and people. The cons: it does kill honeybees…but if you spray it at dusk that minimizes that chance that bees will come into contact with it (bees return to their hives in the evening). I’ll probably pick this up tomorrow.

For the moment we have only used Neem Oil which is “relatively harmless” to adult insects so doesn’t have the same capacity to kill bees, parasitic insects, etc. Neem oil derives from a variety of mahogany tree, native to India. In addition to being an insecticide it is used for antibacterial, antiviral and other health purposes. Josh sprayed the asparagus plants heavily this evening…so here’s hoping that we get quick results.

**always buy Neem Oil and other organic products that are OMRI certified!