Photo by Jessica Walliser My corn looked good until those nasty stinkbugs took hold. |
Stupid stinkbugs have ruined my corn! I was so excited to harvest my Jade Blue sweet corn, but when I peeled back the husk, the kernels are all shriveled and warped. The foliage is completely covered with stinkbugs and the white splotchy damage caused by their feeding.
I ran into my neighbor while walking our dog last night, and we were talking about how his corn is inedible this year, too, for the same reason. He has grown sweet corn in his veggie patch for 20 some years and has never had a loss like this because of an insect. (The deer and raccoons are a different story!) It’s so disheartening. We chatted for a good half hour about all the losses our gardens have had this year due to the stinkbugs. They are going to be crazy bad in our houses this winter. Gross.
I am leaving tomorrow for the Garden Writer’s Association’s annual conference in Indianapolis. I’m sure stinkbugs will come up as a topic in many conversations throughout the weekend. I have been invited to give a lecture on beneficial insects during the conference (stinkbugs are certainly not included on that list!) and am looking forward to seeing some old friends and making many new ones. I’m excited to have lots of new insect images to use during my presentation—I finally invested in an extension tube for my camera and have been trolling about the garden on a near daily basis to catch some good bugs in action. I wonder if they will ever notice what a great and prolific protein source stinkbugs are …
