They're rose chafers... I think!

I think I've finally figured it out -- these little beasties are rose chafers, or Macrodactylus subspinosus!


According to Jeffrey Hahn, Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota:

• An adult rose chafer is a moderate-sized insect, slender, pale green to tan in color with reddish‑brown or orangish spiny legs and short antennae.

• The larval stage, or grub, has a brown head and conspicuous legs and its body is bent into a ‘C’ shape. Fully grown, a rose chafer larva is about 3/4-inch long.

• Adult rose chafers feed primarily on flower blossoms, especially roses and peonies, causing large, irregular holes. They also damage fruits particularly grape, raspberry, and strawberry.

• Rose chafer also feed on the foliage of many trees, shrubs and other plants, such as rose, grape, apple, cherry, and birch. Rose chafers typically damage leaves by eating the leaf tissue between the large veins, a type of injury known as skeletonizing.

Now that I know what they are, I can figure out what to do about them! Stay tuned!

Help with pest ID.... please!

It was late May when I first noticed them in the sumac.


Then they moved onto my beloved roses and peonies.


But when they attacked the strawberries, they made this fight personal.


Just a few days ago Ella help me pick a small, but beautiful, harvest of strawberries.



Now the patch looks like this. Decimated.


I've been calling these pests Japanese Beetles, based on their behaviour, the damage they inflict and the kinds of plants they favour, but now I'm not so sure. According to some of my reading, the front of Japanese Beetles are dark metallic green while their wings are a metallic dark tan. Also, there are two small patches of short white hairs on the rear and five white hair tufts along each side.

These pests are neither metallic, nor do they have those distinctive white markings, which are key identification features.

However, I have found many of these -- or something that looks like these -- in the ground, which are the larvae of Japanese Beetles:

Photo source: Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada

So what are these? False Japanese Beetles? Mutant Japanese Beetles? Something else entirely?

Their bodies measure approximately 1 cm or 0.5 inches.


The photos are a bit dark but as these beasties are solar-powered -- they're sluggish when it's cloudy out and most active when it's sunny -- I had to photograph them in dim light.

I'm desperate to identify these as this year's infestation is much worse that last year's and I've got to take some action. I've read that there are a couple of treatments for Japanese Beetles, namely milky spore and/or beneficial nematodes, but if this is another kind of beetle, then that may prove ineffectual.

Any suggestions, advice or stories from your own garden/farm trenches would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Slim pickings

The house that I grew up in had a big picture window above the kitchen sink. I always knew I wanted the same when I found my "forever" home so I was thrilled to find our farmhouse had such an arrangement.

The backdrop to my window view is largely a mix of towering cedar and birch trees, with the bunkie off to the left and the vegetable garden off to the far right. Front and centre is a lovely mature raspberry bush.

Despite looking a bit bedraggled, we were still treated to some delicious berries last year. I wasn't sure what to expect this year as raspberries are biennial but I pruned the canes back in the spring, put down some more straw to keep down the weeds and hoped for the best.

After last year's raspberry escapade, the kids were pretty excited to finally go picking -- but they had a hard time finding more than a tiny handful of dark berries.


With spring coming three weeks early this year, I noticed fruit forming earlier than last year. Unfortunately, this coincided with the early arrival of my nemesis -- the Japanese Beetle, which decimated my roses, peonies and has been seen buzzing around my vegetable garden.

Looks like these beasties found the raspberries too. Can you see the skeletonized leaf? Nasty.

I'm not sure if the beetles are the only reason for our slim pickings this year. Perhaps the canes are too old or maybe the soil needs some TLC. There are still some immature berries on the bush that'll make a nice topping for some homemade yogurt but that's about it.

But this paltry harvest helped reinforce the connection between the growing of food and what shows up on your plate. It was like a mini lesson in crop failure without the hardship and empty bellies. It taught the kids to appreciate what they did pick and not take it for granted.

Together, we're going to do some research so we can figure out how to increase our yield for next year -- but only after we visit the strawberry farm again to get our fill of berries.

Madcap Monday - A prickly encounter

Hmmm.. what are those lumps in the hayfield?

Groundhogs maybe?

Not groundhogs.

Uh oh, that one looks mad. I'm outta here.

Where's Henry? Keeping a safe distance, I see.

"You go check out the lumps. I'll stay right here, thank you very much."

Guess he learned from his last encounter with a prickly pig.

P.S. This is my 100th post! Yay me :)

Garden nasty ID: Asparagus beetles

As we only have three small patches of asparagus tucked into the old perennial beds, I thought we'd seen the last of our harvest for this year.

I was surprised -- and pleased -- to see a few spears poking out from under the poppy leaves... until I got a bit closer.

What I first thought was lady birds turns out to be asparagus beetles. Yuck.


According to the University of Minnesota, there are two kinds of asparagus beetle: the common asparagus beetle (Crioceris asparagi) and the spotted asparagus beetle (Crioceris duodecimpunctata).

The common asparagus beetle, which is more prevalent and causes more damage, is bluish black with six cream coloured spots on its back. The spotted asparagus beetle is reddish-orange with twelve black spots, six on each wing. Both are 1/4-inch long.

We've got both species, though it appears we have more of the spotted variety. Lucky us.


The beetles feed on the asparagus spears, causing scarring and browning. They also devour the ferns, which appear later in the season.


Asparagus beetles overwinter in sheltered areas such as the hollow stems of old asparagus plants... or overgrown perennial gardens. Crap.

Common beetles lay lots of dark brown, oval-shaped eggs on the spears, ferns or buds and within a week, the larvae hatch and start feeding. Two weeks later, they fall to the ground to pupate in the soil and about a week later, the adults emerge to begin the cycle again.

The spotted beetle has a similar life cycle but appears a bit later than the common beetle, arriving in mid-May and disappearing in late July. The eggs are greenish instead of brown.

Apparently, the best time to find the beetles is in the afternoon when they're most active, though I didn't have any trouble finding them in the morning. If you have a small crop, flicking the beetles into a pail of soapy water removes them and gives the owner of the crop a delicious sense of satisfaction. But you have to move fast -- those little blighters are quick.

If hand picking isn't your thing or if you don't have hours to track asparagus beetles armed with a trusty bucket of water, Tetrastichus asparagi, a tiny metallic green wasp parasitizes up to 70% of asparagus beetle eggs. Anyone know where I can find said parasitic wasp? Anyone?

Removing plant residue around the asparagus helps decrease the number of overwintering sites available to adults and should help decrease the population of beetles next season. Out of my three small patches, only one was affected and I'm thinking of removing it completely and establishing a new bed with the 20 asparagus roots we just purchased.

But first I've just got to dig me a great big trench. Any volunteers? Hello?

Meet our new resident: Mr. Tattie Bogle

This is Mr. Tattie Bogle, or Tattie for short.

Being a fashionable scarecrow, Tattie is wearing a pair of my son's old Osh Kosh jeans and a worn out Gap button-down shirt (both originally thrift store finds), Ella's "mum-Henry-chewed-my-Nerf" ball, a pair of old gardening gloves and a baseball hat that I'm sure my husband doesn't need anymore. Of course, Tattie wouldn't be complete without his pie-plate accessories.

The kids and I made Tattie as a response to the questions, "Why are my radishes growing there but not here?" and "What happened to all those lettuce seedlings?"

Yes, crow, we're on to you. That's right. You heard me. Your days in the garden are numbered.

As for the name: in case you're wondering if I spent too much time in the sun today or if I've been playing with those online name generator programs again, "Tattie-bogle" is the Scottish name for scarecrow.

An uninvited visitor

I love gazing out over the barnyard while sitting at my big farmhouse kitchen table. Just like earlier this evening. I was admiring the frolicking goats, the handsome horse, the small red creature standing in the run-in stalking our ducks….

HEY!!!! That's a red fox going into the barn!!

Photo courtesy of fotosearch.com

Off I went running out of the house like a lunatic again (I tend to do a lot of that around here) with Lucas close behind me. I guess the fox heard me coming (really?) for it high-tailed it into the paddock behind the barn and was later spotted trotting along the far end of the adjacent hayfield before entering the woods.

We’ve been restricting our hens’ barnyard movements for the last week after finding several suspicious piles of feathers in the hayfield. We thought it might have been a fox that had snatched a hen or two (or three) but what surprised me just now is how brazen it was – standing there, just a few feet from the entrance to the barn like it owned the place.

Thankfully, all winged creatures are accounted for but it's too bad we can't give our "noble" donkeys any credit for saving the day. You know the barn-eating, hay-burning creatures we installed to protect our flock? They missed out on the action. Completely. They were behind the barn treating themselves to some lovely dust baths.

Since this latest crisis, I've been reading up on foxes on the BackYard Chickens' "Predators and Pests" forum and I know we should count ourselves very lucky -- this time. For it'll be back. It's not a question of if, but when.

So it looks like I'll be shopping for more electric fencing tomorrow -- maybe that portable netting stuff -- or perhaps some traps, though foxes sound pretty tricky to snare.

Unless anyone else has any suggestions -- what do you do to keep your poultry safe?