My hands are stained with the insides of tiny maggots, the larvae of the asparagus beetle, which is laying waste to our small but fine crop. It feasts on no other plant and when I saw the adult beetle, despite it being my first sighting, I knew instantly what it was. So today I have spent a good half hour squishing the beetles and their gorging young.
Here’s the adult beetle – really a thing of beauty!
And so you can identify it on your own asparagus, here’s the larva – this one is so fat it could pop!
There’s no other way to deal with them organically, yes it’s certainly the grim side of growing. These beetles have three cycles a year, so if you don’t catch them early, they’ll have a good three goes at ravaging your delicious asparagus. This really weakens the plants and could eventually kill it.
Luckily I was able to go some way to off-setting the feeling this taking of life gave me with the sowing of four trays of Esmee rocket – a quick growing brassica from which I hope to get a good harvest before the winter crops go in.
