[Wednesday – The Plant Lady Chronicles] Ah, Grasshoppah!

Perhaps you’ve noticed or heard, Albuquerque currently has a grasshopper problem.

There are so many of them that they show up on the weather radar, initially perplexing meteorologists.

Westsiders definitely have it the worst. (But then, they always get the worst of everything – worst dust storms, worst traffic, worst heat.) The grasshoppers haven’t been too bad downtown or in the valley.

People have been asking what can be done about them. My answer, personally, I think nothing. You can’t spray them. You can’t kill them one by one – that would be a losing battle. Maybe you could use netting to keep them off your fruits and vegetables like you would use to deter birds, but I don’t know if that would work or not. I don’t think we have much choice but to endure them until (hopefully) the rains chase them away next month. To be clear, I say that as someone whose plants are not being destroyed by the little buggers. If they were eating my food, I’d probably be a lot more fired up to find a way to get rid of them. For whatever reasons, they’re not bothering my veggies much. SO FAR.

I was talking to Kathi of Rio Valley Greenhouses at the growers’ market this past weekend. She told me that people keep asking her, too, what to do about them. She said she’ll ask people what’s happening, and most people have said that they water their yard in the evening, then the grasshoppers come through and eat everything. Based on that, she believes the grasshoppers are attracted to the cooler area created by the watering. She thinks people are accidentally inviting them to the yard by watering late. Her advice has been to water in the mornings instead.

That’s something anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to try!

If you have advice for our grasshopper problem, we’d love to hear about it in the comments section.

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Good To Grow is an Albuquerque-based interior and exterior landscaping service. We use plants and flowers to decorate offices, homes and patios around the city. We also offer memorial garden services, meaning that when a loved one passes, we can plant a customized garden in his or her honor. If the person who passed was an avid cook, we can plant an herb garden to honor that person’s memory. If a Veteran dies, we can plant a red, white, and blue perennial flower garden. If you lost a beloved pet, we can plant a garden around the burial site.

If you’d like to know more about the landscaping or memorial garden services offered, please send an email to lizatheplantlady at gmail dot com. Thank you for your consideration.