Organic Pest Control -Squish!

If you've ever grown nightshades - the family of peppers, eggplants, tobacco, potato, tomato, tomatillo, et al. You have probably heard of the Colorado Potato Beetle. It is the bane of any no-spray potato producer. They start to appear once it gets fairly warm outside (like now) and the big old beetles just crawl into your potato or tomato patch. The adults don't eat much - their appetites are more carnal than epicurean - as evidenced by the proliferation of neatly arranged orange eggs under the lowest leaves of your nightshades. The eggs soon hatch into soft red larvae that will voraciously eat every leaf off of your precious nightshade. They are the hardest on potatos, and are the reason we didn't grow potatos this year.
We don't know of any organic solutions to the Colorado Potato Beetle problem except finding them and squishing them. If you can catch them early, that is the best time. Kill all of the adults and squish all of the eggs before they hatch. If the first wave of eggs hatch you are in big trouble, because the generations will start to overlap and you'll have a magically unending supply of red squishy larva eating your leaves.

We didn't get any larvae picture because we only had a few. Chelsea fortunatly noticed the adults before the eggs hatched. When searching for eggs, larva, and adults sometimes you have to look really carefully at the plant and the area around the plant because they love to hide from you! This one is hiding under a teeny tiny Horse Nettle plant. They love this little weed that is also a nightshade. We don't like it because it stings you when you try to uproot it barehanded. We think it is a wild host for the Colorado Potato beetle and are trying to eliminate these weeds from around our tomatos.

Check out this awesome anti-potato beetle propaganda poster!