Dirty buggers have stripped the oak trees and now they are eating my garden. Lost almost all my carrots and 50%of my green beans to them overnight. Birds will not eat them, even chickens. Do not want to use any spray in the garden. Spread DE (the stuff you put in pool filters) all around the edge of the garden and that seems to be killing them. Also they are eating some of the flowers around my house, primarily the irises. Killed them there with ant spray.

They were up here in the 80's real bad

We were overrun with them around 20-25 years ago. There were 2-3 years when they stripped every leaf off in sight but then they die out. Saw the first significant signs of them returning last year and now they are ramping up this year. I'd imagine it'll be much more widespread next year.

The BT stuff kills them and other caterpillars, but they have to eat it first.

We've had some real bad years, then hardly any, I guess it's your turn....and you should be using the food grade DE for insects, supposedly works better than the pool grade

Oh man, you're not kidding Eric! Almost every Oak in my neighborhood has been stripped clean of leaves.
Also, blueberries and apple trees have been hit hard.

I remember that. People used to say there was soooo many of them , you could hear them crunching the leaves.

In reality , what you heard was their droppings falling through the leaves. It was that loud and that many.

Standing in my yard you'd think it's raining. Nope, caterpillar poop.

Sure it's not Locust's?

Had them here like that 2 years ago. Walk under the tree and youd feel it hitting you. Anyplace with a tree canopy over the road would end up with what looked like tobacco juice stained road. They said the oaks could handle one year of defoliation, but two years would likely kill them. Luckily, they werent nearly as bad the next year. When they run out of oaks, they will eat pine needles if they get hungry enough...big appetites. I sprayed all the trees in the mowed portion of our yard to protect the trees....the rest of the property took a beating.

I know you don't want to use spray in the garden but if they eat everything anyway why not. Sevin is my friend, unless your going to eat the crop very soon. Is their a long time hold over of sevin I'm not aware of? I always thought it degraded over a short time to safe levels

We had them last year bad, this year so far I haven't seen but a few. I bought the gypsy moth traps and they work great. Tree help.com has traps and lure.