they are everywhere

THEY ARE EVERYWHERE
this spring i had the prettiest garden ive ever had
tomatoes producing like crazy
some of them would take up a whole hand
and they were heirloom delicious sink tomatoes

we had beans and more beans of different varieties
the best were the two foot long asian beans my older
brother gave me

we had lots of lots of squash looking like we were going to
defeat that squash borer this year
by planting tatume squash

luckily we had a bumper crop of onions and garlic

we also have and still have armenian cucumbers being
produced

yep one proud organicgreen doctor of his garden

then

in june it was hot and dry
the fewest rain weve had in june maybe ever
luckily i had plenty of irrigation rainwater to use
but that heat just takes its toil on plants

we were doing ok until about a week ago
when we got that 100+ temps several days in a row

that seemed to activate the grasshoppers
we have grasshoppers every year but
this year its the worst ever
its of biblical proportions

when you go in our garden there are thousands of grasshoppers
it seems in the garden
chopping away at everything green
there are so many that even the country n hens get their fill
early on each day and seem to not be interested the rest of the day

even our two guineas start out the day going after those grass hoppers
but soon i guess get so full they just stop eating them

when you walk out to our car there are so many grasshoppers that
they jump against the metal siding of our house and it sounds
like some one is shooting it with bird shot

here is what use to be a beautiful coral honeysuckle that for
some reason the hoppers really like

they especially like my citrus trees
they even eat the bark off the branches

in the back ground you can see where ive covered up the
citrus plants with row cover hoping to salvage enough of the
plants to keep them alive

i have no pictures of my garden as i dont want any pictures to
look at in the future
as looking at the garden in real time makes me sick

tomatoes destroyed
asian beans gone
other beans about gone
squash either grasshoppered or squash borered
luckily my peas are being spared for now as are my cucumbers
but it appears that they are beginning to eat them now

ive managed to cover up my summer stuff with row cover
okra peppers basil egg plant and some tomatoes
the rest im afraid are doomed

im just glad i dont do this for a living
but even then
its devastating after all the work

maybe ill start having fried grasshoppers every day
i could feed all of texas just from my property

the organicgreen doctor