Steps
- Get Some Chickens. Keep chickens or guinea hens. They eat loads of grasshoppers and will save your garden from destruction. Many cities and towns allow keeping these birds with permits.
- Some Like It Hot. Hot pepper wax insect repellent is the key. It's in all the garden catalogs. Insects can't stand the taste, and therefore do not eat the leaves! And it's natural.
- Look for Neem. Natural insecticides with Neem as the active ingredient will kill grasshoppers. I do not think it will harm other insects, but check the label. Neem trees are common in the Indian subcontinent and are prized in the villages where they occur. The leaves are a natural disinfectant and insecticide. Toothpaste made with Neem extract is available in the U.S. and is effective against sores in the mouth.
- Try Ecobran. There's a product called "Ecobran" that is a grasshopper bait containing a fungus that only affects grasshoppers and their close relatives. It doesn't affect other insects or birds. Go to ecobran.com [1].
Tips
- About 4 chickens will rid your grasshopper problem in a couple of weeks.
- Chickens also give you hours of entertainment. There's something very comical about the sight of a hen in hot pursuit of a startled grasshopper!
Warnings
- Chickens may scratch at the garden beds and you may have to tidy up more often, but it's worth it to get rid of the grasshoppers.
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Get Rid of Grasshoppers. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.