If your kale looks like lace and your dahlias have gone from lush to lacy overnight, you’re probably not dealing with beetles or caterpillars. Late July is peak grasshopper season, and in dry, hot summers like this one, they show up in numbers that can strip a garden bed in a couple of days. They’re not subtle about it either. One morning everything’s fine, the next your bean leaves are down to the veins.
Grasshoppers are one of those pests that a lot of gardeners underestimate because they don’t think of them as a “real” infestation the way aphids or Japanese beetles are. But a bad grasshopper year can do more damage than almost anything else in the garden, mostly because they’re mobile, they eat an enormous range of plants, and by the time you notice them they’re usually already adults, which are much harder to kill than the nymphs were back in June.
Why late July is the worst of it
Grasshopper eggs laid last fall hatch in late spring, and by midsummer those nymphs have matured into full-grown, winged adults that can fly from field to field looking for food. Dry weather actually favors them — it reduces the fungal diseases that naturally keep grasshopper populations in check, and it dries out wild grasses, pushing hungry hoppers toward the greener, better-watered buffet in your vegetable beds. So if your area has had a dry spell this month, that’s not a coincidence with what’s happening to your plants.
What actually works at this point in the season
By the time grasshoppers are adults, a lot of the usual advice stops being useful. Here’s what’s realistic in late July:
- Row covers on anything you can’t stand to lose. Grasshoppers can’t chew through it, and it’s genuinely the most reliable option once populations are established. A lightweight floating row cover over your remaining lettuce, beans, or young transplants will save them outright.
- Nolo bait, if you catch it early enough. Products containing the protozoan Nosema locustae infect grasshoppers and reduce populations over time, but it works best on young nymphs, not the adults you’re likely seeing now. Worth applying to problem areas anyway, since it also affects next year’s population.
- Kaolin clay spray. A product like Surround WP coats leaves in a fine white film that grasshoppers find unappetizing and disorienting. It’s not glamorous looking in the garden, but it’s one of the few things that actually deters adult hoppers.
- Ducks or guinea fowl, if you’ve got the setup for it. Genuinely one of the most effective grasshopper controls that exists. If you already keep poultry, letting them range through the garden in the evening can make a real dent.
- Skip the broad-spectrum insecticides if you can. They’ll knock back grasshoppers temporarily, but they also wipe out the predators and parasitic wasps that would otherwise help keep populations down long term, and grasshoppers often just fly back in from neighboring fields anyway.
For a deeper dive into grasshopper biology and regional outbreak patterns, the Utah State University Extension grasshopper guide is one of the better resources out there, especially if you’re in a drought-prone region where outbreaks tend to be worse.
The annoying truth
Some years, you’re just not going to win outright. Grasshoppers are highly mobile, they don’t respect fences, and a bad year in the surrounding fields means a bad year in your garden no matter what you do. The realistic goal isn’t zero grasshoppers — it’s protecting your highest-value plants with covers and clay, letting the tougher stuff take a few hits, and remembering that next spring’s tilling and reducing tall grass around the garden edges will cut down on where the eggs overwinter in the first place. It’s not satisfying advice, but it’s honest.
