Well, another two weeks of summer have flown by since my last post. We have had our wine party-which turned out to be a great party! We served stuffed mushrooms, sausage on rye toast, a raspberry and nutella on puff pastry dessert, cheese and crackers, crab cakes (which everyone raved about so here is the recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_27332,00.html
We love Paula Dean!) We also had some pastries with cream cheese fruit dip and fruit, shrimp cocktail, a few other appetizers and many wines. :) A few we didn't even open. We had a chardonnay, a few rieslings, a moscato, a couple cabernet sauvignons, a malbec (my new favorite) and a zinfandel. Our guests stayed, well most of them, until almost twelve thirty, which is late for us! :)
We've also had a wedding in the state we met at college, a trip to my homestate and a great time with the family at my paternal grandparents' lake cottage. We also brought my maternal grandmother home with us until tomorrow. We have had a busy and fun week with Gram. We've tooled all around our area and shopped more than I normally do.
Onto the title: Garden Pests...Ugh. My flowers in my perennial and annual garden are growing so nicely and then they returned for their annual buffet: the Japanese Beetles.... for those of you who are lucky enough to not know these munchers, I educate here: http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/trees/ef409.htm
They have thoroughly attacked my purple loosestrife, my daisies, my purple and white coneflower and my black-eyed susans! They eat or kill all of said plants in a short amount of time, but the traps only attract more as does squashing them one by one...yes, I've tried it and I've also tried organic and pesticidal methods of destruction. They have not led to the demise of the beasts in the several years of my attempts...so I'm about to break down and call a pest control company and pay an arm and a leg to get rid of them. Wish me luck!
3 comments:
You sound as if you're having a good summer. That Nutella and raspberry dessert - yum. I'm a vegetarian so wouldn't go for some of your fishy things, but I'm sure your guests enjoyed them. Who's Paula Dean? - a writer of recipe books?
Those Japanese beetles sound dire -don't think we have them, thank goodness. Hope the holiday continues well.
Oh, we're battling Japanese Beetles right now too. They destroyed my Japanese Maple, go figure.
A word to the wise, don't put a trap right next to the plants you're trying to save. It makes the problem 65435784351389 times worse.
We filled a bag in a day. It was disgusting.
yep, no bags. I learned that quite a while ago... unless you sneak one into your neighbor's yard. Not that I've done that. And don't just squish them...the smell that the carcass gives off also attracts more, unless you've drowned them in soapy water... :)I hate Japanese beetles.
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