In the Southern California desert there are just a few grasshoppers. You might see two a week. But in 2023 there was a plague. They wiped out all the plants they are not supposed to like and some trees. They were covering the side of the house. The garden, which is covered in pretty good shade material on the top and sides did not keep them out. I put down stacks of Costco Rotisserie chicken containers along the fence and around any plants I liked. We had stacks of these trays. Put water in them and the hoppers would jump in and die. The garden smelled like death. I would spray the dead ones out of the containers and put more water in. It was a disaster.
Hoppers like these
- peppermint - yumm - at them back to stems but as you know nothing can kill a peppermint plant so they are still thriving
- rosemary - ate every single blade off of every stem and it was a few feet. dead.
- blackberry - all gone - a few varieties - young - their second year
- raspberry - all gone - a couple variety - young - their second year
- oregano - yes they ate this too but the plant lived so there's that!
- artichoke (ate it down from about 4 feet to 5 inches) yumm - it lived.
- onions - yumm - but the onion patch lived
They didn't like garlic. After this, I planted a handful of garlic around each new plant. haha didn't need it for hoppers but ended up with lots of garlic.
They didn't like celery - although they did eat it.. Can't say I blame them. The nasty celery has just taken over since planting in 2019. Have to saw it down if it goes too long, which it always does, because it is so powerful strong flavor.
Killed these trees:
- peach - three new peach trees that were covered in new leaves. The established 13 year old peach was fine.
- walnut - it was established a few years. The other walnut from the same year was fine - different variety.
- cherry - two cherry trees died and one lived. The old one died. New one lived. Three different varieties.
- plum - the old plum tree died and the new one lived. Different varieties.
- apricot - one lived and one died. Not sure on variety.
(every companion tree I had planted the previous year either died or it's companion died - ugh)
- apple - the baby apple tree died but the rest lived
Trees made it: fig.
It might be a stretch to say that any of the trees were fine because in 2024 we didn't get much if any fruit but in 2025 they are back to normal.
The varieties documented, but not memorized, if anybody is interested.
Sorry, this doesn't have anything to do with chickens. Actually just saw this was the chicken forum.
I didn't have any in 2023.
