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Were I particularly religious — which, for better or worse, I'm not — I'd be looking over my spiritual shoulder at the locusts that even now are threatening to eat my garden down to bare wood and dirt.

A sign of divine displeasure? As a person guided by natural science, I'm no less worried. OK, they're technically not (yet?) locusts, but the grasshoppers on my little acre of gardens and weeds must number in the hundreds of thousands.

Many are quite small; of those, some are mature adults of small-bodied species and some are nymphs. If they fly, they're adults. They seem to like to eat all kinds of things, such as watermelon seedlings, corn, chile peppers, broom corn, iris, apple leaves, raspberry leaves. Even weeds like kochia.

Unfortunately, not much can be done about grasshopper hordes. There is a microbe called Nosema locustae, specific to grasshoppers, that can be purchased in a bran-based bait. The protozoan-laden bran is scattered out early in the season, and the young Õhoppers eat, sicken and die. Some local nurseries carry the product, but it is very perishable so they don't stockpile it.

The usual dosage is one pound per acre, but that's under light pressure. I put out two pounds on about a tenth of an acre, concentrating it where they were most numerous. I also put it out about six weeks too late, but I'm hoping with crossed fingers that it has some effect.

I'm also celebrating every blister beetle I find. The adults do feed on plants and are toxic to horses if eaten in hay and can raise a nasty blister on your skin if provoked. But their larvae feed on grasshopper eggs in the soil; that's good enough for me.

Regular insecticides can kill grasshoppers, but their sheer numbers and great mobility, combined with strong chemical constitutions, require very frequent re-applications of strongly toxic materials. Don't try to kill them with soapy water, they'll just sing in the shower.

Using herbicides isn't an error-free operation. Watch out for summertime damage on certain trees and plants, especially ash and sycamore trees, and grape vines, to name a few. Symptoms of accidental herbicide damage include curling of leaf margins and a strap-like distortion of the leaf blade.

Affected tissue is often off-color, either more yellow or streaked with very pale color. The plant may also lose some leaves, especially under repeated exposure. Most plants will recover from a one-time accidental exposure, with time. However, if a plant is exposed too often, then it may begin to decline and possibly perish.

How does this accidental exposure happen? When temperatures are above 85 degrees, certain chemicals will become a gas and rise up through the canopy of overhanging trees and shrubs. These chemicals are often found in fertilizers that are combined with herbicides.

My advice is to not use those products, as the best time to fertilize isn't the best time to apply herbicides, which should only be applied to solve a specific problem that hasn't responded to other methods, like hand-pulling.

Using pesticides is like being a martial arts expert. Power of that kind must not be used with thought, reason and an awareness of consequences. One potential consequence of pesticide overuse is the evolution of chemical resistance within local target pest populations. If this happens, then that chemical weapon must be retired and a new one sought.

Don't be too quick to reach for a product-based solution. First, think of solutions that require labor and effort. That way you'll get some exercise, too.