While at Manito Park last week, my husband saw something a bit worrisome to both of us. Along the perimeter of Rose Hill, they are growing Globe Thistle (Echinops). On the flower buds, there were a whole bunch of stink bugs and we could see damage that they'd caused to the flower heads.
We are also growing some Globe Thistle in our own garden and even though our plants don't have flower buds just yet, we are going to keep an eye on them to see if stink bugs are drawn to them as well.If it turns out that they are, that would be a good place to trap them in the hopes of keeping them away from our edible crops. They caused a fair amount of damage to our artichokes last year, which just happen to be in the same plant family (Asteraceae). Interesting, eh?
Just wanted to let you know about this observation. Will keep you posted on what we discover.
Last year we had so much stink bug damage. They ruined our tomato and peppers crop. Our later ripening romas were essentially wiped out by them. We are not raising tomates or peppers in our garden this year to see if we can break this destructive cycle. We had not had any problems of this nature until last year; it was truly an infestation! :( This year it appears to be The Year of the Gophers!!
ReplyDeleteBoy, you bring up a really good point. I think we all need to be very alert in our gardens to see if the stink bugs are around and make sure they're not causing any damage. We were at Manito Park again today and saw some on these globe thistle plants again. We are really going to keep an eye on our artichokes and tomatoes, in particular. Re: gophers, they are a very frustrating problem as well. Hang in there!
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