Works for Me Wednesday: Organic Beetle Spray

This week at Bailey's Leaf we are on Beetle Patrol! Sounds exciting, eh? Well, they love my Purple Plum tree. Last year, they loved it so much that they actually defoliated it. The leaves were skeletonized and I was surprised that the tree came back after the massive devastation. So, we give a shout out to my organic chicken farmer friend, Cj for the lovely Beetle Juice recipe. (Sorry to my regulars who read this just the other day.) Here goes:

Organic Beetle Spray (or in my house AKA Beetle Juice)

1 small sliced onion
a couple of tablespoons of red pepper seeds
a couple of tablespoons of dried minced garlic (what I had) or the equivalent of the real stuff

Put into an empty gallon jug (preferably water, as milk always has a milky smell), fill up with hot water, let sit and brew like sun tea. Fill your sprayer feeder (I have one from Ortho that I have turned to 8 oz per gallon) and spray the ever lovin' daylights out of whatever the beetles are eating.

The first I sprayed was Monday. The beetles were swarming from the tree, ended up on me and in my clothes. (Ewwww!) I sprayed again on Tuesday and there were maybe one or two beetles that emerged. The spray is working! I'll spray everyday this week until I make sure that I've driven them away. (Or at least every sunny day.) I'm trying to drive them away from the tree and on into the bags.

A tip: If it rains or you have a particularly dewy evening (like we did last night) re-spray your tree in the AM. I did notice that the dew "rinsed" the spray smell from the tree and the beetles were finding the tree a cozy home again. Argh. Will these things ever go away?!

Couple that with a beetle bag and you are set. Tricks to a beetle bag? Well, the naturalist hubs of mine will tell you:
1. Place your bag 30 feet or a little less downwind of what is being eaten. (Not always an option, but that is what the box says.) You don't want to place it right at the plant, as that draws the beetles and well, that is what you are attempting to avoid.
2. Empty the bags regularly. Beetles are repelled by the smell of their dead buddies hanging out in the bag of death. Think about it, would you purposely go into a death trap? Uh, nope.
3. You don't have to buy their hooks. If you have an empty shepherd's hook (or two like me), just use those!

Smiles in my day:
- K- was able to spend Tuesday with her grandma at the local city water park and they had such a good time.
- K-'s mosquito bites are healing. The one by her mouth a little more slowly than the rest, but I put some more neosporin on it last night. Hopefully that will help.
- My in-law's got me a spaghetti dinner and had me sit down for a meal. I'm so tired. Usually, Hubs picks K- up, but he was able to go home early so that he could rest and recuperate from the virus that he has going on. I went to get her, but I don't get there until 6:30 PM. It was so kind of them.
- K- loaned out her new-to-her dolls to her little friend, E-. It was a very sweet gesture that I did double check with her a few times on the fact that she was okay with it. I want to encourage sharing and thoughtfulness, but this evening at bedtime (I write my post the night before) she was regretting having loaned them out. She wanted me to go and retrieve them and I told her that we would get them back tomorrow. She has played with them so much, but I told her how proud I was of her sharing and that God's heart was smiling, too. We'll talk more about it in the morning, but I was so proud of her for loaning out a prized possession. The wantsies backsies? I think that is more due to the extreme exhaustion she is suffering from her big day at the pool.
- K- took about a dozen of her cookies to share with Nana today. An older couple at church have adopted K- and the grandmotherly lady bakes for K- on a regular occasion. Her husband dropped some cookies by for K- on Sunday evening. He dropped 5 dozen off! She also shared a dozen with E-.
- Have I mentioned that Hubs is on the mend? Now, if he could just catch back up on his sleep and get back to his abnormal/normal state of being with his regularly scheduled digestive distress . . . (If only that could be figured out and healed.)

Hey! Have a good day! :)