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Bug Vacuuming for Organic Pest Control

June 13, 2009 by Gardener  
Filed under Growing Groceries

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One of the main challenges facing organic gardeners is (no duh) pest control. The weapons in our arsenal is relatively limited. While, ideally, healthy plants grown in rich biologically-alive organic soils should be visited less frequently by insects, it still happens and can be devastating to your garden. Organic pest control products, like Neem Oil or Rotenone, are expensive and stuff, and often aren’t terribly effective. Also, products containing pyrethrium or rotenone are non-selective and will kill good bugs as well as bad.

I recently discovered a great way of controlling certain pests in a very sustainable (and perversely fun) way that’s more effective and less tedious (and disgusting) than hand picking bugs. And since you’ve already read the title of this post, you know what it is.

Bug vacumming was tried in larger scale organic production a while back, but to my knowledge no manufacturers are currently manufacturing field vacuuming equipment, since the bugs sort of tended to hide under the leaves to avoid getting sucked up by the large equipment.

For smaller gardens and farms,hand held vacuums are much more effective however.

I recently bought a Black and Decker 14.4 volt Dustbuster Hand Vac. As I walked out of the store I experienced a jolt of perverse pleasure at the thought that the folks at the store had no clue as to the murderous use I would put it to. At $40 it was a bit of an investment.
If I could do it again I would buy something that…well….sucked more. But it works okay on a full charge. Alternatively, if your garden is close to a power outlet, you can just run an extension cord and use your home vacuum with a hose attachment or a shop vac.

I’ve found it to work great on squash bugs and brown stinkbugs. Two pests I always have to deal with that are not easily dispatched by organic pest control products. I’d imagine it would work great with any kind of beetle, at least beetles that don’t fly away too fast.

Obviously, this method would not work well at all on caterpillars, or other pests that have that knack of clinging to stuff.
It’s important to jump on the offending buggers as soon as they’re noticed. Go out with the hand vac daily thereafter to keep the population down. As always, frequent inspection of your plants is super, and can help keep a problem from becoming a disaster. Be sure to pay special attention to the undersides of leaves for creatures that might require vacuuming.
After the vacuum session is complete, dump the contents of the vacuum into a bucket of water and watch the jerks drown.
I know it sounds crazy, but I swear this works.

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