The Colorado Potato Beetle

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     My grandpa and grandma always had three big garden plots. One was strictly potatoes, one was tomatoes, and the last one was green beans and a mixture of whatever odds and ends grandpa decided to try.

     Canning was a big event when the tomatoes and green beans were ready, but the biggest crop was potatoes. We all had jobs when it was time to harvest potatoes. The adults dug them up with potato forks and put the biggest of the potatoes into baskets that would be deposited into the root cellar/storm shelter/cave. (That’s a whole different story on it’s own.)

     That left the grandkids to gather the small baby potatoes from the dirt and the vines. If the job was done right, there’d be dirt under our nails, on our hands and faces, and our knees as we crawled from hole to hole, plucking taters from the roots of the plants, sifting through the dirt, and filling the holes. 

      But that was the end of the growing season. What I remember most is crawling through the garden and pulling weeds from the rows of tomato, bean, and potato plants several times during the summer. The tomato plants always made me itch, but I still pulled weeds when he asked. 

     One thing I didn’t do was deal with the potato bugs. Their true name is the Colorado Potato Beetle. Grandpa crawled through the garden and picked them off the plants by hand, and then he’d drop them in a small can he carried with him.  I don’t know what was in the can, but it was probably water and dish soap to make sure they never bothered another potato plant. 

     I didn’t know why he got rid of the potato bugs by hand. He used pesticide on the tomatoes and green beans. One day he explained it to me. There weren’t a whole lot of pesticides at the time that would kill potato bugs all season long. There were always a bunch of potato bugs that needed to be removed by hand. 

     That brought up a story about the only thing he’d ever seen that was to guaranteed to kill potato bugs all season long.

     His brother, Bill, had found an advertisement for a guaranteed potato bug killer in the back of a magazine.  He and grandpa talked about it before Bill ordered it. I think it was a dollar or two. I can’t remember exactly how much, but grandpa said it was a lot of money back then for something that they weren’t sure would work. 

     Grandpa passed on the potato bug killer, but Bill ordered it when he planted the seed potatoes. They were coming up nicely when a small box came in the mail. Bill was ready to mix up a batch and treat his potato plants. 

     He opened the box expecting to find a can of powder or liquid that he could mix with water, but instead he found a small block of wood and a tiny wooden mallet. Luckily, it came with instructions. 

1. Place potato bug on block.
2. Use mallet to kill bug.
3. Repeat until all potato bugs are dead. 

     Well, it wasn’t false advertising.  I just wish I had a copy of the instructions. Grandpa said it was illustrated with drawings of a live bug on the block, the hammer coming down, and a bug belly up on the block with little crosses for eyes. I’ll bet they’d still sell with the right advertising.