Monday, March 8, 2010

Operation grasshopper die! die! die!

No i'm not that worked up really about grasshoppers. They are annnoying and are preventing me from planting things which would otherwise be in the ground now - and i do like to get a head start mind.
The pumpkins seem to be a bit resisitent to them and that's mainly what i have left in the garden out at the plot. however if i planted tomatoes now they would be devoured in minutes. i don't even think my 20% shadecloth will stop them.

  Still, on the weekend i mixed up my fungal spores from the green guard and sprayed mercilessly. if this stuff works i will have have killed thousands of grasshoppers - mostly tiny little wee ones. I had a bit of a depot at my house where i mixed up the solution and had various grasshopper tormented people visit and pick up their solution.

There are so many grasshoppers though in the wider landscape that i'm not sure this spraying will have a very long effect - unless the fungus starts to spread by itself amongst the "grassies" population. but i think that's being over-optomistic.
i have kept a small captive population so i can closely study what happens to them after they have been sprayed. if they do succumb to the fungi i can perhaps blend them up into a new mixture.

So as well as spraying the grasshoppersat 3 locations on the weekend i knocked off the turkeys, ate off(rotten) pate, threw up and sat on the toilet for a while,ate a turkey (with stuffing),made stock, put the male and female rabbits back together (sorry i don't name them but if they did have names they would be sno ball and meat head). The rabbits were "at it" in a matter of seconds and within a minute meat head had thrown himself onto the floor and was groaning in a breif afterglow. everythings' breif with rabbits.

We also did a bit of mucking out of the rabbits cages and re-wired some parts of their cages that rusted through. they rust because they pee in the one spot and because my cages are not state of the art accommodation - but they are roomy.

watching my seedlings go a bit leggy because the hot house is too shady but the hardening off area is busy with other things i wish would move on.

I'm also watching (killing) the remaining grasshoppers around the corn as they have a habit of chewing of the "silks" as they emerge from the female flower. The fungus spray takes 7-12 days to work i think.

My cape Goodeberries have perked up again and have not bceome victims of nematodes after all

Now that the weather has turned cool coriander is on the planting list along with peas and radishes, carrots, pasnip, beetroot, more lettuce and chinese greens too - oh and Fennel and Stocks because i have a sentimental attatchemnt to them and probably other things i have forgotten.

2 comments:

  1. Our turkeys are eating the grasshoppers, we haven't fed them in weeks (the turkeys, not the grasshoppers) and they are ranging way out in the paddocks.

    I felt so sorry for the Asian marketgardener on the teev the other night and wished I have eleventy three turkeys to donate to him.

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  2. those turkeys are just such great free rangers aren't they? i can't wait to have a flock of them - they eat so much grass compared to chooks

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