Let the bugs do the work! How Good Bugs Can Help Your Garden Thrive

You have worked the soil, you have germinated the seeds or you have carefully chosen your plants, you have faithfully watered and finally your plants are growing and you can almost taste that fresh tomato or that crunchy cucumber. But something else is eating your veggies before you get the chance. After all your hard work, those nasty critters are feasting at your expense. But you don’t have to spray your garden with harmful chemicals to protect your crop. Let the bugs do the work for you!

Using good insects to eliminate insect pests that damage or destroy your plants is just one of the ways you can manage your garden without harmful pesticides. Remember, most of the insects in your garden are harmless or really help your plants. When you stop using pesticides and have a variety of plants growing near or in your garden, you will attract many allies. There are two types of useful insects. They are predators: those that eat their prey, and parasitoids: those that lay their eggs on or within their hosts, and eventually kill them.

To take advantage of these natural predators, you want to turn your garden into a friendly habitat where beneficial insects make themselves at home.

Make sure to provide:

o Shelter: Keep the ground covered with abundant organic matter.

o Pure environment: Never put harmful chemicals in your beneficial insect’s habitat. If you use insecticides to eliminate pests from your garden, you also run a great risk of getting rid of the insects that are useful. When you stop using all chemicals, you may temporarily experience a sudden spike in pests. It could take a while for the beneficial insect population to grow to adequate levels.

o Food – Be aware that most predators and many parasites also use pollen and nectar for food. You’ll want to include plants that bloom at different times during the growing season so that you always have a source of pollen and nectar.

o Water: Keep the soil moist and water the plants in the morning. You can also provide shallow water-filled dishes or bird baths with a couple of rocks sticking out of the water’s surface, so insects have access to plenty of water.

o Create your garden habitat to attract beneficial insects quickly. Plant annual plants like alyssum, cosmos, sunflowers, and marigolds. At the same time, plant perennial flowers and herbs, such as yarrow, lavender, peppermint, fennel, angelica, and tansy. After you’ve harvested the dill, parsley, carrots, and coriander, let the plants flourish in the garden; your allied insects love them.

Here is a list of some of the beneficial insects that you want to attract to your garden.

MEDIUM APHID

The aphid mosquito is a small mosquito-like fly with long legs and long antennae that feeds on aphids. Aphid mosquito larvae are effective aphids predators.

Plants that attract the aphid mosquito include:

o Apples, Blueberries

or Cabbage, Dill

o Ornamental shrubs

DRAGONFLY or DAMSELFLY

Dragonflies vary in color, have long, narrow bodies 1 “to 2” long, large compound eyes, and 4 transparent wings. They feed on mosquitoes, aphids, and other insect pests.

Plants that attract dragonflies include:

or Caraway, Cosmos

or Fennel

or goldenrod

EARTH BEETLE

Ground beetles vary in shape and color, but are generally shiny and have jointed legs. Black is a common color, sometimes with a metallic sheen of another color on its wings. They rarely fly, prefer to run when disturbed, and usually hide in piles of weeds or debris. They are dark and about 3/4 inch long. They hunt in litter at night for insect eggs and larvae, and feed on cutworms, rootworms, slugs, caterpillar moths, aphids, flies, chiggers, earwigs, and snails.

Plants that attract ground beetles include:

or evening primrose

o Mint, Rosemary, Thyme

or white clover

FLIGHT HOVER

Floating flies (also called hoverflies) look like small bees, with yellow, black or white bands, but they move through the air like flies. Adults must feed on nectar before reproducing, so they are good pollinators. They lay their eggs near aphids or other soft-bodied insects. When the eggs hatch, the hungry larvae eat up to 60 aphids each day. They also eat mealybugs, small caterpillars, and other small insects.

Plants that attract floating flies include:

o Caraway, Carpet bugleweed, Catnip, Coriander, Cosmos, Daisy, Dill

or fennel, goldenrod, lavender, morning glory

or parsley, mint, spearmint, sunflowers

o Queen Anne’s Lace, Sweet Alyssum, Wild Buckweed, Wild Carrot

LACEWING (the most effective predators you can buy)

Lacewing have light green bodies, transparent lacy wings, and are 1/2 “to 3/4” long. The larvae are small, grayish-brown and narrow, and look like small alligators. The larvae and adults eat aphids, mites, caterpillars, mealybugs, leafhoppers, insect eggs, and whiteflies and other small insects. Individual white eggs are deposited on the ends of stiff, inch-long threads.

Plants that attract lacewings include:

o Angelica, Caraway, Cilantro and Cosmos

o Dandelion, dill, fennel, tansy

o Queen Anne’s Lace, Sweet Alder, Wild Carrot, Yarrow

LADY BUG

Ladybugs feed on aphids and other soft-bodied insects, such as aphids, mealybugs, mealybugs, and mites, as well as insect eggs. Ladybugs eat up to 50 aphids per day. If the ladybugs lay eggs, each larva will eat about 400 aphids before beginning their pupal stage. Spray uncultivated plants with sugar water to attract ladybugs.

Plants that attract ladybugs include:

or Angelica, butterfly grass, sweet alyssum

o Carpet bugleweed, coriander, cosmos, dandelion and dill

o Fennel, Goldenrod, Tansy, Wild Carrot, Yarrow

BEE MASON

These bees are more like house flies than honey bees, but they are good pollinators for fruit trees. Most mason bees live in holes and can be attracted by drilling short holes in a block of wood.

Plants that attract mason bees include:

o Fruit trees with staggered flowering (apricot, peach, plum, cherry, apple and pear)

o Strawberries, Raspberries, Blackberries,

or roses

MINIATURE PARASITIC WASPS (braconid, chalcid, icneumid, trichogramma)

These tiny wasps will defend your garden against aphids, caterpillars, tomato fruit worms, tent caterpillars, whiteflies, cabbage claws and horn worms. Parasitic wasps lay up to 300 eggs in moth or butterfly eggs. They don’t live long, so time their release to coincide with the presence of pest eggs. Braconid, chalcid, and icneumid wasps are much larger than trichogramma and lay eggs in or on the caterpillar. The hatching eggs eventually kill the host. These wasps do not sting people or pets.

Plants that attract parasitic wasps include:

o Allium, Caraway, Coriander, Cosmos, Saffron, Dill

o Fennel, Goldenrod, Parsley, Queen Anne’s Lace

or Sweet Alyssum, Tansy, Wild Buckweed, Wild Carrot, Yarrow

PIRATE ERROR

The pirate bug eats aphids, thrips, mites, whiteflies, and insect eggs. It lays its eggs on the surface of the leaf near its prey. The cycle from egg to adult takes only three weeks.

Plants that attract pirate insects include:

o Cosmos, fennel, Queen Anne’s lace

o Sweet alyssum, Tansy

o Wild Buckweed, Wild Carrot

ROVE BEETLE

Wandering beetles resemble tiny scorpions when they hold the tip of their abdomen in the air. They are 1/10 “-1” of an inch long and, depending on the species, feed on aphids, springtails, mites, nematodes, slugs, snails, fly eggs, and worms. These beetles thrive on litter, fallen decaying fruit, and the loose bark of fallen and decaying trees.

WELDED BEETLE

The soldier beetle has a narrow, black abdomen and a bright red head, and is approximately 1/2 “long. It looks like a firefly, but cannot produce light. The larva is orange with black markings. The soldier beetles eat aphids. , caterpillars, grasshopper eggs, other soft-bodied insects, and beetle larvae.

Plants that attract soldier beetles include:

o Coneflowers, Fennel,

o Goldenrod, Hydrangea

or milkweed

TACINIDA FLY

Tachinid flies look a bit like house flies. They can be brown, gray, or black in color, and some are very hairy. They feed on caterpillars, including cutworms, apple moths, tent caterpillars, cabbage hooks, pumpkin worms, and gypsy moth larvae.

Plants that attract tachyinid flies include:

or Caraway, Cosmos, Dill

o Fennel, parsley, spearmint

o Queen Anne’s Lace, Sweet alyssum, Tansy

You can see that dill, fennel, and sweet alder appear again and again in the list above, and you can attract a lot of beneficial insects just by including these three plants in your garden. By helping good bugs thrive, you can grow more healthy, natural vegetables for yourself and your family, and keep pesticides out of your food and our water supply. For more tips and great links, check out the link below to Organic Eden. Happy gardening!

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