CHEMICALS ARE BAD NEWS, NATURE IS GOOD - IT WILL HELP YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR GARDEN IF YOU WORK WITH IT'S PRINCIPLES, SOMETIMES REFERRED TO AS THE LAWS OF NATURE. JOIN THE MANY FOLK WHO ARE GOING CHEMICAL FREE. IF IT WASN'T FOR THE USE OF NASTY CHEMICALS, MEDICAL WAITING ROOMS WOULD BE HALF EMPTY. YES THAT'S TRUE, SO LETS LOOK AFTER OUR FAMILIES, HEY? AND SPREAD THE NEWS FROM THIS POST TO NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS, SO THEY CAN BENEFIT TOO. MANY ARE TURNING TO THE DIGGERS CLUB OR YOUTUBE AND VARIOUS WEBSITES FOR BETTER SOLUTIONS, SO HERE'S SOME OF MY EFFORTS TO HELP YOU WITH YOUR SEARCH, INCLUDING 2 SAFE ORGANIC SPRAYS.
You Will See 5 Beneficial Insects To Encourage.
EXCERPTS FROM DIFFERENT WEBSITES
To Help Insects, Make Them Welcome In Your Garden – Here’s How
By Brian Lovett - Postdoctoral Researcher in Mycology, West Virginia University
Lawns Are Insect Food Deserts
Some gardeners choose native plants to attract and support helpful insects. Often, however, those native plants are surrounded by vast expanses of lawn. If you’re a gardener looking for a new challenge this year, consider revamping all or part of your yard to support beneficial insects.
This bold choice will not just benefit insects. Healthier insects support local birds, and meadows require fewer chemical inputs and less mowing than lawns. The amount of attention lawns demand from us, even if we outsource the work to a landscaping company, is a sign of their precarity.
A meadow is a wilder, more resilient option. Resilient ecosystems are better able to respond to and recover from disturbances.
Native flowers, by definition, will grow well in your climate, although some areas will have more choices than others and growing seasons vary. Native plants also provide a palette of colors and variety that lawns sorely lack. By planting them as a meadow, with many different flowers emerging throughout the growing season, you can provide for a diverse assortment of local insects. And mowing and fertilizing less will leave you more time to appreciate wildlife of all sizes.
There are many different types of meadows, and every wildflower species has different preferences for soil type and conditions. Meadows thrive in full sunlight, which is also where lawns typically do well.
Making Insects Feel At Home
Not every yard can support a meadow, but there are other ways to be a better, more considerate neighbor to insects. If you have a shady yard, consider modeling your garden after natural landscapes like woodlands that are shady and support insects.
What’s important in landscaping with insects in mind, or “entoscaping,” is considering insects early and often when you visit the garden store. With a few pots or window boxes, even a balcony can be converted into a cozy insect oasis.
A Refuge In Every Yard
You may find established communities of enthusiasts for local plants and seeds, or your journey could be the start of such a group. Part of the fun of gardening is learning what plants need to be healthy, and a new endeavor like entoscaping will provide fresh challenges.
In my view, humans all too often see ourselves as separate from nature, which leads us to relegate biodiversity to designated parks.
You may find established communities of enthusiasts for local plants and seeds, or your journey could be the start of such a group. Part of the fun of gardening is learning what plants need to be healthy, and a new endeavor like entoscaping will provide fresh challenges.
In my view, humans all too often see ourselves as separate from nature, which leads us to relegate biodiversity to designated parks. In fact, however, we are an important part of the natural world, and we need insects just as much as they need us. As ecologist Douglas Tallamy argues in his book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” the best way to protect biodiversity is for people to plant native plants and promote conservation in every yard.
LADYBIRDS
Ladybirds and their larvae are well known as friends of gardeners everywhere. This is due to their seemingly endless appetite for aphids and mites. Plants, such as dill, coreopsis, and fennel will ensure that your garden has a healthy population of ladybirds. Just keep in mind that they have been known to bite humans on occasion.
LACEWINGS
These delicate-looking flies and their larvae eat a whole host of pests including aphids, caterpillars, thrips, and whiteflies. Welcome them into your garden by planting sweet alyssum, angelica, cosmos, and coreopsis.
Photo: siamesepuppy, licenced under CC-BY-2.0
PRAYING MANTIS
Planting marigolds, dill, various shrubs and areas of tall grass will attract these creepy practitioners of insect kung-fu to your garden. After taking up residence, they will take it upon themselves to protect your plants from crickets, caterpillars, moths, and beetles with a calm and collected coolness that few other insects can match. https://blog.fantasticgardeners.co.uk
ATTRACTING BENEFICIALS IN THE GARDEN
I've found planting a small patch (or a few rows) of buckwheat, even in a flower garden, attracts a heap of beneficials. Most are very small bees/wasps that love-love-love the teeny tiny blossoms of buckwheat.
Maybe I'm crazy (pretty certain of that), but I mow around my yellow-jackets nests in the ground, leave them a few feet of tall grass around their entrances, and I enjoy a lot less bugs because these guys are out foraging for them all day long. https://www.almanac.com/beneficial-insects-garden
Other Helpful Garden Insects And Their Favourite Plants
Some plants are particularly popular among beneficial insects. Here’s a list of some of our favourite friendly insects and the flowers that attract them.
Lady Bugs: These cute, spotted beetles feast on aphids and other plant-destroyers, and they’re attracted to fragrant plants, such as dill, chamomile, yarrow, and goldenrod.
Hoverflies: These underappreciated pollinators are often mistaken for wasps, and they’re doubly useful as they also eat cabbage worms, mealy bugs, and aphids. They’re big fans of smelly garden herbs like cilantro, catnip, and oregano.
Butterflies: These little winged beauties don’t pollinate quite as speedily as other insects, but their long tongues give them access to flowers many bees can’t reach. Butterfly bushes, delphiniums, asters, and phlox are sure to attract them like a magnet.
Creating a bug-friendly garden and encouraging your friends to do the same can help reverse the harmful effects chemical pesticides have had on our ecosystem. It might not seem like much, but by taking these simple steps and making changes to your existing gardening practices, you can help the bee population thrive, while improving rates of pollination and food production in the process. https://salisburygreenhouse.com/bug-friendly-gardening
How To Encourage The Good Bugs In Your Garden
Bad bugs eat our plants and ruin crops, leaving our garden a mess and plants more susceptible to disease.
Good bugs (aka Beneficial Insects) help to control leaf chewing insects by making a meal out of them. While the good guys are moving about the garden eating mites, aphids and scale, they're also doing the important work of pollinating our plants.
The Good Bugs
These bugs are good, and help us in the fight against the bad ones. Leave them alone!
Lacewing
If you spy tiny white dots balanced on hair-like threads, attached to the stem of one of your plants, chances are they're lacewing eggs.
The larvae that emerge will eat most garden pests - aphids, mites, whitefly and insect eggs.
The larvae grow into translucent pale green moth-like insects. Lure helpful bugs like these to your garden by planting the kind of flowers they like - small flat flowers clustered together, so the pollen is easy to reach.
Hover Fly
Moving like drones, these little flies dart forwards or sideways before pausing to hover (hence the name). Don't mistake them for a wasp - their black and yellow stripes help them escape predators, but they mean no harm. While adults help pollinate your plants, their hungry larvae munch up aphids, scale insects, thrips and caterpillars.
Some hoverflies lay their eggs in stagnant water, where their larvae eat mosquito larvae; and some scavenge in ant nests. Hoverflies are the good guys!
Natural Safe Organic Treatments
Too many bad guys in the garden? Try using a natural product like eco-neem to control leaf-chewing insects, and eco-oil to reduce pests while encouraging good bugs. Rather than eradicating all insects on contact, the solution is sprayed on the plant and only eaten by the chewing pests. This leaves the good guys to get on with their work.
Get the bug balance right by adding beneficial bugs to the garden. You can get these online and have them delivered to your door, like the Backyard Buddies range from Eco Organic Garden.
Plant Flowers And Herbs For Pollinators
Help native fauna find a safe haven in your garden. These plants are essential for beneficial insects to feed on; and many have attractive flowers or fragrant leaves for us to enjoy.
Plant them separately, or in this Good Bug mix of herbs and cover crops
• alyssum • bergamot • carrot • coriander • cosmos • daisies • dill • fennel • lavender • lemon balm • lobelia • mint • parsley • pea • veronica • zinnia
Source HERE
There Are Other Insects That Help Defend Your Garden, I've Featured Five Of Them In This Post. I Expect To Be Making A Post Re Pollinators Some Time Soon. There Is Considerable Interest In Natural And Organic Gardening Practices. Also For Your Interest, Consider Reading Field Trials Show Flowers Help Beat Vegetable Pests – Read This! On Ours Australia!