Photo courtesy of J-Fish at Flickr.com.

The safest, most effective way to remove large insect pests like potato and Japanese beetles from your plants is to pick them off. However, if you’ve got more than a few plants, this can become impractical real fast.

To remove bugs like this in bulk, make use of two common household items: a sheet and a broom. Lay the sheet out next to the row of plants you’re working on, and tap each plant (gently!) with the broom in the direction of the sheet. The bugs will be knocked onto the sheet, where you can inspect them, rescue beneficial insects, and dispose of the critters you don’t want. Do this several days in a row, and you’ll quickly reduce the population of unwanted garden invaders.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 5:05 am and is filed under Gardening Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.