Do you have Organic Bug repellent ideas?

[SueQ]

I don't want anything that will kill the toads and lady bugs that I have in my garden but the Japanese Beatles and the bean beatles are starting to invade and I want to get rid of them. With a nursing baby and 3 other children I don't have time to pick off each bug adn larvae one at a time as I know some people do.

Ideas of something that will now kill my friendly bugs but get rid of the "bad" ones?

[Lady TS]

The Japanese Beetles are horrible here, too! We have some wild grapes by the back door and they are almost completely stripped and the beetles are moving toward my garden! They like sunflower leaves, too. :no2

The thing dh found(other than picking them off by hand---that would be an all-day job because there are swarms of them!) was to use cigarette butts soaked in water to make a tea and then spray that on your plants. But NOT peppers, tomatoes and......anything of the nightshade family....potatoes I think? The reason behind NOT doing that is that any plant diseases in the tobacco might be transferred to your nightshade family plants, since they are of the same family.

Dh got some butts(that sounds funny, lol) from the guys at work and I'm going to try it if I get the time to make "tea" and find a spray bottle to spray the stuff...


Or you could try diatomaceous earth. Mix it with water and spray it all over your plants. This is a more gradual killer, though. The earth particles get between the beetles' parts and grind them. :sick So it wouldn't neccessarily be friendly to the ladybugs, iykwim. I don't know about the tobbaco. Maybe we have to sacrifice a few good bugs to get rid of the slew of bad bugs or just not have a garden, ya know?

[Lady TS]

I'm looking at my Rodale's Pest and Disease problem solver and it suggests using row covers or some way to cover your plants to protect them from the japanese beetles. Of course, you'd have to clean the bugs off, first. They say Japanese beetle traps are not effective unless the whole neighborhood is doing it. They will just attract more and more beetles to your yard if you're the only one using the traps. :/(I need to tell my FIL that--he's got bags full of bugs from his traps!)

They have a 2-year life cycle, and the beetle eggs live in the grass over the winter. To destroy beetle eggs in turf, let your lawn dry out well between waterings in the midsummer/fall. Also, to control larvae, you can apply insect parasitic nematodes or neem to the sod in late spring or late summer.
For long-term control, apply milky disease(Bacillus popillae) to the turf. Aerate the turn with spided aerator sandals to kill larvae while they are close to the soil surface in late spring and early fall.