How to Get Rid of Japanese Beetles

** This is a super easy way to get rid of thousands of Japanese Beetles quickly and without having to spray pesticides. **

If you have any kind of fruit or berry bush, I'm sure you know exactly how frustrating Japanese Beetles are. They come in swarms and devour plants until there is nothing but a skeletal structure left. Last year I looked all over Pintrest for different recipes to protect our blackberries and fruit trees. I found one mixture that worked well, but had to be applied pretty much daily to keep these gross little pests away. I also happened to pull a bunch of ligaments in my foot trying to avoid a swarm of them after spaying. Wet grass and slick shoes don't mix my friends.

This year I wanted to try something easier, and a little less hands on with the bugs. Amazon is typically my first go to for products, and I was excited when I found these traps. I ordered two because we have quite a bit of space to cover.

I took this picture right after I hung the bag. I had beetles following me to the post from my front door - this thing works that great.

This was the following morning. I think it's worth noting I set the bag up around 8:30pm the night before. I'm convinced this bag was filled to the brim hours after installing it. Side note, I was gagging while taking this picture and fully utilizing my zoom option on my camera.

Seriously, look at that. It makes my skin crawl, which is problematic because just by looking at this photo, it's pretty clear I needed to either change the bag or come up with another idea.

I went with another idea...

I decided to try hanging a garbage bag over the shepherds hook that the bag was attached to. This worked, until an hour later the bag was so heavy that the drawstring was closing the opening at the top.

A few minutes of motivating self-talk and with the moral support of my older daughter, I was able to poke holes in the top of the bag and attach them to the frame of the trap so the drawstring couldn't close completely. I'm sure we looked crazy. The two of us kept getting close enough to get dive bombed by the bugs, only to yelp and run back to a safe distance. It took a bit, but we did it.

That's a lot of bugs.

These Japanese Beetle traps work really well, so much so, that I would suggest keeping them at least 100 or more feet away from the plants you want to protect. The directions say 30 feet is enough, but I would argue that. To see the exact bags I used, click here.

Here's one of our bell pepper plants. I couldn't bring myself to end a post on a garbage bag full of bugs. A garbage bag I need to go empty at that. Wish me luck...