while out wandering the place the other
day i noticed that the japanese beetles
have absolutely shredded the wild grape
vine leaves and are quite heavily infested
in them, which is why i'll have to keep
hand picking them off the bean plants for
quite some time. today, i'm going to go
out with a large bucket with a little soapy
water in it and see if i can knock the
population back a bit.

usually i've been hand picking them off
the plants and squishing them and leaving
them for the birds to eat. so i will
probably squish a few back there too and
see how many get eaten.

the wild grape vines should be removed
anyways as they are growing on a fence and
will weigh it down too much again. we cut
them back this past spring, but they've
certainly bounced back. it's not an easy
edge/fence to maintain as it is right along
the bank of the large drainage ditch... in
the longer term plan i'll probably remove
it entirely as i think it is more work to
keep up than the benefit it provides in
rerouting deer to one side or the other.


songbird