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free bird
Farmgirl in Training
26 Posts
Laura
Victoria
Texas
USA
26 Posts |
 Posted - Feb 16 2005 : 4:38:44 PM
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Hi all--I just thought of something I tried to help keep the stinkbugs away from my tomatoes a couple years ago. Here in south Texas, stinkbugs seem to be the bane of all tomato growers. This decoy crop trick did seem to help me, so I thought I'd see if any of you wanted to give it a try.
As I set out the tomato transplants, I planted sunflowers adjacent--not right next to them, but right across a few feet from them--one sunflower per every 4 or 5 or so tomato plants. (I planted 2 or 3 seeds per spot, to end up with one sunflower plant per spot after thinning.) I didn't use the big sunflower with the huge head, instead I used the tall variety "Evening Sun"--a lovely sunflower with multiple 5-inch flowers in all shades of red, gold, brown. Sunflowers grow fast, and right about the time that the sunflower plants began to get tall, before their first blooms opened--and long before the adjacent tomato fruits were of any size to attract stinkbugs--the stinkbugs decided to make their assault on the tall juicy sunflower plants.
Stinkbugs just love the thick sunflower stems and leaves. They especially love to lay their eggs on underside of the biggest sunflower leaves, out of sight. But I was sneaky, because I knew to look for them right there. Sure enough I discovered lots of big flat sheets of stinkbug eggs (and sometimes hundreds of tiny hatchlings near them on the sunflower leaf) and it was a simple matter to get a pail of water and cut off the affected sunflower leaves and throw them, along with the new baby stinkbug colonies, into the water and do away with them before they ever set their feet on any of the nearby tomato plants.
Since "Evening Sun" sunflowers are so pretty might not hurt to give this a try. To make sure you have tall sunflowers to attract the stinkbugs before ripening tomatoes, you might want to plant the sunflowers just a tad earlier than the tomatoes to give them a head start.
I love my chickens |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 07:18:55 AM
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Here in Kansas we don't have the stinkbugs bothering tomatoes. It is usually leafwilt and fungus... I do think that we have stinkbugs eating our squash and melons and pumpkins because they lay on the ground oftentimes. We call them squash beetles. They emit a bad odor when stepped on... I cannot stand them!!! I always battle them when trying to grow pumpkins, which they love.... Sunflowers grow well here so I will try your idea freebird...thanks. Jenny
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
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using sunflowers as decoy plant for stinkbugs
