The Garden Connection

The Isanti County Master Gardeners (ICMG) have had a busy summer! First we participated in the Isanti Rodeo Jubilee Days parade and received the Ambassadors' Choice Award for our float.

Shortly after Rodeo Jubilee Days came the Isanti County Fair where we had a booth. This year our theme was Bugs! We had 601 visitors, maybe the hot, smoky weather contributed to that lower count from previous years. Of that total 224 were children; on Kids Day our booth served 107 kids. We also had demonstrations on dividing perennials and live and dried bugs for people to examine. Many people took insect literature and colored picture cards for identifying bugs in their own gardens.

All seminars will be located at the Cambridge Public Library starting at 6:30 pm.

• On August 13, Kara Baldwin will give a Bog Tour at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve.
• On September 10, Bonnie Bergerson of Wayne's Greenhouse & Garden Center will present on Success with Succulents.

All seminars will be located at the Cambridge Public Library starting at 10:00 am.

• On September 22, Stephanie Thurow will present on Small-Scale Homesteading & the Art of Preservation. Stephanie is a Certified Master Food Preserver and Hennepin County Master Gardener, food preservation instructor, and author of Can It & Ferment It. She is also a co-author of Small-Scale Homesteading. She shares these skills through Minnesota from Scratch. In this session, Stephanie will explore self-sufficiency from urban homesteading to water-bath canning, and will conduct a live, hands-on demonstration on how to make fermented sauerkraut!

• Northwest Region: Saturday, October 3 in Alexandria (Douglas County)
• Southwest Region: Saturday, October 17 in Lamberton (Redwood County)
• Central Region: Saturday, October 24 in Andover (Anoka County)
• Northeast Region: Saturday, November 7 in Carlton (Carlton County)
• Southeast Region: Saturday, November 21 in Austin (Mower County)

In a recent newsletter from the MN Department of Agriculture, the Winsome Fly was featured as a biocontrol for the Japanese Beetle.

The Winsome fly was first introduced in 1922. During 1998 – 2006, the USDA and the MN Department of Agriculture made several releases of the Winsome Fly in Hennepin County and it has now reached noticeable numbers since 2017; increasing by 10% – 60% in several Metro areas. The fly has been reported at the Arboretum, in Washington County and in Dakota County.

The fly targets adult Japanese beetles and can lay up to a hundred eggs over its short 4 week life span specifically targeting the female beetles. When the fly egg hatches, the maggot bores into the Japanese beetle’s body affecting its ability to fly, causing it to stop feeding in about 3 to 4 days and eventually falling to the ground where it burrows into the soil to die within 5 to 10 days. The fly larva then overwinters inside the dead beetle and emerges in the spring about a week before the Japanese beetles as a new adult thereby increasing the Winsome fly population.

You can encourage these beneficial flies to your garden by planting flowers that provide nectar for the adults to feed on. Good plants to plant include Dill, Cilantro, Sweet alyssum, Chamomile and Daisies.

Consider your time picking Japanese beetles by hand a ‘treasure hunt’ as it is crucial to leave any beetles with visible white dots on their thorax. Beetles may even display multiple eggs on other areas on their body. The beetles with fly eggs will host the egg until it hatches and becomes a biocontrol agent.

To help better understand the distribution and density of this biocontrol agent, report Winsome Fly observation to iNaturalist and the UMN Dept of Entomology. You can also take a picture and let all of your fellow Master Gardeners know you scored a sighting.

Submitted by Ruth Paschke, ICMG

Photo: Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org

Content: MN Dept. of Agriculture and Bill Hutchison, Department of Entomology University of Minnesota

Katie Hagen, Agricultural & Natural Resources Extension Educator - hagen@umn.edu

Presidents: Mary Januschka & Ken Schroepfer Vice Presidents: Dawn Haas & Jane VanderSchaaf

Secretary: John Nordin Treasurer: Nancy Carlson Treasurer Apprentice: Sandi Knolls

© 2025 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.

The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.