Dan Iwerks wrote:

...last year,
we got some milky spore powder, which was advertised as a way to keep
Japanese beetles out of the garden. You could say that it worked, as we
didn't really have any beetle problems. Largely because we didn't have
any plants. The tomatoes shot up, but never produced fruit, and the
plants just died. Didn't get much in the way of peppers, though, to be
fair, the herbs did well.

So the question is, did the milky spore have something to do with this,
or did I just not fertilize enough last year? I can't imagine that first
year could have sucked all the nutrients out of the soil, so the milky
spore powder would seem to be the obvious "X factor"....





Milky spore is an organism, not a chemical, so it is not likely to have
affected your tomatoes or peppers, since the soil organisms don't get
sucked up by the plant roots. Other factors? Hotter than normal summer?
Have you been growing tomatoes in the same spot for several years?

Milky spore may take a couple of years to really get established. Also,
it's not enough to put the milky spore in the garden where you see the
japanese beetles. The beetles are strong fliers, so they can easily
travel from an untreated area to your garden. You have to tread a
significant area with the spore to be really effective. Unfortunately
for most people in suburbia, that means your neighbors' lawns as well as
your own. On the other hand, every little bit helps. Get your neighbors
interested in treating their lots also.

There are also pheromone traps for JB. My personal opinion is that they
should be placed to attract the beetles as far away from your garden and
all your neighbors gardens as possible. If you put the trap in your
garden you will attract the beetles from a wide area and some of them
will not get trapped.