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Having vegetables and flowers in the garden guarantees a spectacle, assuming you're ready to sacrifice at least some of the vegetables ;)

doodlebugging 2y ago
Exactly. This is why we overplant dill and tomatoes. We know we're gonna see lots of butterfly and moth traffic so we plant enough and spread it around the garden area so that we still have some available for ourselves. We have a great diversity of bugs, birds, and things on our place so I try to make it as welcoming as possible by planting and maintaining the areas around each garden area with native plants, flowers, and grasses so throughout the season we have lots of activity as new vegetables or fruits bloom in turn. I keep several solar fountain pumps running so that any animals, or insects have a water hole they can depend on. I'm on top of a limestone outcrop here but this year I have my first Leopard frog in one of my fountains. All the fountains are regular gathering spots for yellowjackets, red wasps, bumblebees and other bee types. There's plenty for the frog and the toads on the ground to enjoy. I don't mind sacrificing any of it as long as it isn't food for grasshoppers. Screw those guys.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- undebuggable 2y ago
  What exactly about grasshoppers? I like them hopping around and their gentle sound, started appreciating it after being traumatized by loud cicadas in Southern Europe.
  - doodlebugging 2y ago
    If you only have one then you have the ideal number. Out here in N Texas where I live, I am surrounded by native grasses, wildflowers, trees, etc. Some years there are not many grasshoppers. Those are the good years. When you are trying to garden at the same time with grasshoppers and you have a drought, they will eat everything that has any hint of moisture. They girdled one young apple tree, killing it as it was in a growth spurt. The only part alive now are the water sprouts from the root graft and I'm leaving that alive so they can chew on something. They ate every type of vegetation that I have out here - vegetable plants, fruit tree leaves and bark, nut tree leaves and bark, my olive trees, native wildflowers including salvia, sunflowers, lantana, etc. They even ate the tops out of my walking onions so that the only thing left green and relatively unscathed were three pomegranate bushes that took damage but weren't stripped. There were so many grasshoppers of several varieties that dozens would fly up at every step - literally a couple dozen per sq meter. I could swing a baseball bat and be guaranteed to hit at least one per swing. It was ridiculous. The area around my place is being slash-and-burned for a new subdivision. They literally strip the trees, scrape the topsoil to the limestone caprock, scrape the limestone caprock down several feet, haul in topsoil and road base and build streets into the subdivisions where the soil is now deep enough to plant a tree without hitting a rock as long as you don't get ambitious and dig more than three feet down. As a result, all the flora and fauna and a broad cornucopia of living things show up in my yard since it is still largely untouched and covered by native oaks, elms, hackberries, toothache trees, and a single mesquite that I was glad to see sprout about 25 years ago. I have returned my place to native grasses and wildflowers, clearing a lot of really noxious weeds in the process. All the ordinary things are being squeezed onto the remaining undeveloped land here so I get a bumper crop of grasshoppers. That isn't what I was hoping for but it is what I have ended up with lately.

doodlebugging 2y ago

Exactly. This is why we overplant dill and tomatoes. We know we're gonna see lots of butterfly and moth traffic so we plant enough and spread it around the garden area so that we still have some available for ourselves. We have a great diversity of bugs, birds, and things on our place so I try to make it as welcoming as possible by planting and maintaining the areas around each garden area with native plants, flowers, and grasses so throughout the season we have lots of activity as new vegetables or fruits bloom in turn. I keep several solar fountain pumps running so that any animals, or insects have a water hole they can depend on. I'm on top of a limestone outcrop here but this year I have my first Leopard frog in one of my fountains. All the fountains are regular gathering spots for yellowjackets, red wasps, bumblebees and other bee types. There's plenty for the frog and the toads on the ground to enjoy. I don't mind sacrificing any of it as long as it isn't food for grasshoppers. Screw those guys.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
undebuggable 2y ago
What exactly about grasshoppers? I like them hopping around and their gentle sound, started appreciating it after being traumatized by loud cicadas in Southern Europe.
- doodlebugging 2y ago
  If you only have one then you have the ideal number. Out here in N Texas where I live, I am surrounded by native grasses, wildflowers, trees, etc. Some years there are not many grasshoppers. Those are the good years. When you are trying to garden at the same time with grasshoppers and you have a drought, they will eat everything that has any hint of moisture. They girdled one young apple tree, killing it as it was in a growth spurt. The only part alive now are the water sprouts from the root graft and I'm leaving that alive so they can chew on something. They ate every type of vegetation that I have out here - vegetable plants, fruit tree leaves and bark, nut tree leaves and bark, my olive trees, native wildflowers including salvia, sunflowers, lantana, etc. They even ate the tops out of my walking onions so that the only thing left green and relatively unscathed were three pomegranate bushes that took damage but weren't stripped. There were so many grasshoppers of several varieties that dozens would fly up at every step - literally a couple dozen per sq meter. I could swing a baseball bat and be guaranteed to hit at least one per swing. It was ridiculous. The area around my place is being slash-and-burned for a new subdivision. They literally strip the trees, scrape the topsoil to the limestone caprock, scrape the limestone caprock down several feet, haul in topsoil and road base and build streets into the subdivisions where the soil is now deep enough to plant a tree without hitting a rock as long as you don't get ambitious and dig more than three feet down. As a result, all the flora and fauna and a broad cornucopia of living things show up in my yard since it is still largely untouched and covered by native oaks, elms, hackberries, toothache trees, and a single mesquite that I was glad to see sprout about 25 years ago. I have returned my place to native grasses and wildflowers, clearing a lot of really noxious weeds in the process. All the ordinary things are being squeezed onto the remaining undeveloped land here so I get a bumper crop of grasshoppers. That isn't what I was hoping for but it is what I have ended up with lately.