Hungry Invader...

On my morning walk through the Tree Orchid i noticed shiny little bugs sitting on my apple tree snacking on the almost transparent leaves. My first thought was literally WTF are you little things! And why are you eating my tree?

Guess the little bugger also like Grape leaves and pretty much every other fruit we grow!!

Don't get me wrong the Japanese beetle, which i found out that lil bugger is.. thanks to google.., is somewhat attractive. They are metallic green, with bronze-colored wing covers and dark legs.

So now the important question where did they come from and how can i get them to kindly move on to another garden?

After a talk with the older kids (it amazes me sometimes how much knowledge they have) we came to the conclusion that they are actually the adult stage of Grubs!! Who would've thought those unattractive larvae become such a destructive pain in my butt.

I did mention they were ugly!!

So now we covered the question of where but we still need to find out the how we get rid of them?

Spraying the trees is not really an option since it is very close to harvest time and we don't believe in chemicals on our fruits. So...

A farmer friend of mine eventually told me about Japanese beetle traps, which sounds like a great idea but with my luck will most likely backfire and attract more beetles to the yard. So yea not convinced!

Another friend of ours has free range chickens and was telling us about the benefits of them serving as little protein snacks for the chicks. hmmm... i can work with that.. and OMG it is the funniest thing to watch a chicken bob its head in the bowl of water to pick out the beetles hahahaha..

In the end everyone was happy and some of us had full bellies :)