Q: My yard seems to be swarming with lanternflies this year. How can I control them without harming pollinators or other insects? They jump too easily for me to squish them.

A: This may come as a surprise, given the early messaging from the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) to squish them on sight, but you don’t need to do much at this point. The initial advice from the MDA, when spotted lanternfly first arrived in Maryland out of Pennsylvania around 2018, was intended to slow the spread of this new pest by reducing the local populations while researchers investigated ecosystem impacts.

That ship has since sailed, though, as spotted lanternfly now occupies almost all of Maryland and appears in at least part of over a dozen states. To be fair, a person will not be able to put much of a dent in the population anyway, since many are up in the treetops or on vegetation you can’t get to. Fortunately, observations thus far suggest that this insect is not causing widespread disruption or damage to natural areas or gardens. If you see them on a plant that looks damaged, odds are the issue lies with some other problem.

As a member of the planthopper group of insects, lanternfly is, as you noted, hard to catch. They scoot around to the opposite side of the leaf or stem if you get too close, and they jump with surprising vigor when you try to catch them. (This can be great entertainment.) The same will happen if someone attempts to spray them, which means that it won’t accomplish much, since any contact insecticide would need to directly coat their bodies to be effective. Dried spray residues the nymphs might walk over later will not have much impact, unless someone used a long-residual, more-toxic insecticide, which I absolutely do not recommend.

Even if organic spray attempts were successful, the use of one of those lower-toxicity ingredients — horticultural oil or insecticidal soap — is still fairly broad-spectrum. This means it will potentially harm other insects if spray residues coat them in the process (especially juveniles, like caterpillars or flower fly larvae that are hunting aphids). There is no pesticide, organic or otherwise, that will only affect spotted lanternfly and no other insects. Plus, if used in hot weather, even those lower-risk pesticides might “burn” foliage, causing damage to plants more extensive and prominent than anything the lanternflies are doing.

Most Ask Extension inquiries about spotted lanternfly so far this year have been from Baltimore County. Anecdotally, the population crest seen by Harford and Cecil counties in prior years seems to have waned, a pattern expected to repeat itself as the wave of booming spotted lanternfly populations makes its way across the state. Remember brown marmorated stink bug, a nuisance pest that was new to Maryland in the early 2000s? This invasion will probably follow the same cycle – cresting and then subsiding to a background level – but time will tell.

Q: I taste-tested a few of my newly ripe blueberries, and they’re quite tart. Did I not fertilize or water enough?

A: It’s probably more of a matter of just sampling them too early. When the berries just turn fully blue, they’re not necessarily at full ripeness with regards to sugar content. If you can wait three to five days after the color change, and fend off any hungry birds in the meantime, they should sweeten. The degree of sweetness will also depend on the cultivar you’re growing; some are naturally more tart than others.

Blueberries appreciate consistent soil moisture, and their roots do not have a high tolerance for drying out too much. Monitor the shrubs for watering needs throughout summer and autumn. Fertilizer levels aren’t a key player in this fruit flavor issue, but you can follow the guidance on our Growing Blueberries in a Home Garden web page to make sure plants stay healthy and productive without being over-fertilized.

University of Maryland Extension’s Home and Garden Information Center offers free gardening and pest information at extension.umd.edu/hgic. Click “Ask Extension” to send questions and photos.