Alan Sung wrote:

wrote in message
...
...I remember something called Bag-A-Bug that my parents used years ago,
and it seemed to work pretty well. But I can't find it anywhere.

What can I use to get rid of these nasty beasts?

Probably the easiest thing to do with potted basil is to use a physical
barrier. Use something called Remay, which is a lightweight white spun
polyester....




Remay is useful, but it is not available in all garden centers, so you
might have to make do with something like cheesecloth, which might be
found in a supermarket (although there are fewer people these days who
use such things). Maybe an old gauze curtain. Plastic window screening
is flexible enough to make a cage around a plant, but it's more work
than draping a cloth over it.

Since there's only one plant being attacked, the easiest and cheapest
thing would be to take a jar of soapy water and just flick the beetles
off the plant into the jar. Use your fingers. The beetles don't bite or
sting. You will have to do it for a few days to get them all, but the
materials are likely to be readily available. The basil plant will
probably recover from the beetles' chewing unless it's completely
defoliated. Even then, given good growing conditions, basil is a fairly
tough plant and can sprout new leaves from chewed-off stems.

As far as the bag-a-bug is concerned, I wouldn't use it for a local
problem. The trap works by presenting a pheromone to attract the
beetles, which fall into a bag containing soapy water, where they drown.
The Japanese beetles are strong fliers, so they will come from fairly
far away to the trap. Since not all of them get trapped, you will
probably find that you have more beetles in that area when you use the
trap.