Hey, what's up everyone. Welcome back to the epic gardening show. We are talking today about the potato beetle.

It's actually a pretty cool looking pest although it is devastating for potato plants but before we get

into what the potato beetle is how to identify and how to treat it we need to talk about

what it's not so there are a couple different bugs that are known as potato beetles or

potato bugs that just aren't the one we're talking about. So the common pill

bug or the roly-poly is called a potato bug. It's not the one we're talking about and the germinate Roly P One we are talking about is the Colorado Potato Beetle, also known as Leptinotarsa de Klemliniata.

That's a handful right there, or a mouthful, I guess depending on how you think about it.

But they are a super common pest in home gardens.

They are often just called potato bugs, hence the confusion.

And the adults and the

larva can destroy your potato crop,

which it's a bummer because those potatoes need those leaves

to photosynthesize to produce energy

to put into those tubers, aka those potatoes.

They will also eat tomatoes, they will also eat peppers,

and they will also eat eggplants.

Now, how do we identify the potato beetle?

They are noticeable because they're about one third of an inch long.

They are very round. They're yellowish orange

and they have black stripes running vertically from top to

bottom on their wings and they're kind of like little spears. They're more

spherical than most pests you're going to deal with in the garden.

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