It’s been a cool, wet year so far, but one crop that’s doing well are the potatoes. That’s good news for those of us who really enjoy our spuds, and even better news for the voracious Colorado potato beetles.

These hard shelled beasties will chew your potato plants until they appear to be mere shells of their former glory.

Today I talked to a gardening friend of mine about her experience with Colorado potato beetles last year, because they were pretty bad at the community garden where she had a plot. It was her first year of gardening so she never even thought to look for eggs or larvae on the plants. Before she knew it, her plants were covered in the colorful beetles. The good news is she and her husband sprayed them with the Safer brand of natural insecticide, and she said it seemed to help. The bad news is everyone else’s potato beetles simply jumped over to the newly vacant plants.

Prevent Colorado Potato Beetle Damage

Colorado potato beetles are tough because they overwinter in the soil, and then they hit the plants right out of the gate.

One of the best ways to get rid of them is not to plant potatoes in the garden year after year and stay at least a half-mile away from your nearest potato patch since they will travel, but the beetles will head to nightshade or other Solancea family members if potatoes arent present.

Plus, who wants to be without potatoes? And how are you going to talk your neighbors into not growing them?

The other bit of bad news is traditional beetle killers, like carbaryl, don’t work as well on Colorado potato beetles anymore. They’ve built up a resistance to many of those.

Sprays for Beetles

My friend seemed to have decent success with the Safer insect killer, so she’s planning on using it again. This year she and her hubby went around inspecting the plants and eventually found eggs on the underside of the leaves. So you know what her hubby did? He brought them home and put them in a quart jar to observe! This way he knows when they’re hatching (which is now) so he can feel confident about spraying their potato plot and knocking out the rest of them.

Since an assalt from neighboring plots is very likely, one way she can keep the others from attacking her plants is to utilize a floating row cover over them. It does wonders to keep pests off of your plants.

There’s another product called the Colorado Potato Beetle Beater (clever, eh?) that is a spinosad spray that does a fair job on knocking back the population. Spinosad is a naturally occurring pesticide approved for organic use. Its a relatively new product, but is worth a place in the potato beetle killing arsenal.

Colorado potato beetles are frustrating. They make the potato plants look awful; its hard to find all of them and they really make a mess when you squish them. Thankfully, by being proactive its possible to stay ahead of them and save your spuds.