Bugged

My raspberry patch was HUGE this year! I think it was the cool weather we had, the summer heat just wasn't around to stunt their growth. Some of the canes were over 6 foot tall. It made for really nice picking with no stooping, which I took as a personal gift from the Lord!

I'm sure I've mentioned how much I love picking berries, here I am in my berry pickin' attire in the middle of the patch. By the end of summer the 5 foot path between the rows was not passable in spots because of the bent canes.
The harvest was just as HUGE with berries that were also HUGE! We also had tons of Siamese berries, I wonder what causes that. But there were a couple of things that bugged me...

Now these bugged me a bit, they are the pesky Asian beetle, they do do some damage but nothing that causes me much concern. Now we have never used pesticides on our raspberries. Bugs don't really bug me much. Some bugs are good. I love creation and figure its good to share the bounty with Gods creatures great and small....EXCEPT for this HUGE problem.................

Popillia japonica a.k.a. Japanese beetle.
Although they are a pretty bug, I'm sure they have relatives in Hades. A lady I work with told me they are common on roses and we NEED to deal with them. We already planned on it, but research tells us we need to up the "ante" with these bugs. They stripped the leaves and ate the berries, but did they just finish a berry and move on... NO! They sampled from many berries all over the berry patch. They were so many and to say they were prolific is an understatement! They were stacked 3 high and lined up 5 deep, it was scandalous to say the least! Next year we will cut them off at the pass, chem bomb them, what ever it takes, this is war, let the battle begin!

This was our first line of defence for this fall. Last week Jon cut ALL the canes, Willy stacked them and we burned them. No spring berries for us :( but there will be chemical warfare in our back yard!