One of the goals of creating or continuing your home garden is to reach, to the extent
possible, an organic or natural balance which allows you to grow and harvest as much produce as possible without using harmful chemicals. You want to have a garden regimen that avoids chemical residues on fruit and vegetables you don't want your family to ingest and, chemical residue in water runoff you don't want fouling local streams and rivers. An important factor in that balance is helping nature to balance itself when we've skewed its self regulating processes. You can help re-create this balance by providing a hospitable environment for "the good garden guys" to counteract the bad guys.
The difficulty here is that the pests are total opportunists exploiting nearly any situation they find themselves in. The "good guys" need a more hospitable environment. In many cases, the dream lawn on one extreme and the trashy vacant lot on the other both favor the opportunists. The first is too sterile to attract the beneficial insects while the weed infested area overwhelmingly encourages pests. Gardeners have to strive for a balance between the two.
Black swallowtail on red giant zinnia.
In my March 23, 2011 post "Infamous Garden Guests" I discussed using pest controls that do not involve spreading chemicals or poisons. Another important factor in pest control is insuring that your vegetable garden has enough attractive plantings to bring in the natural enemies of the pests. Companion plantings in the vegetable garden area should concentrate on the brighter flowers in red, orange and yellow colors. I find that giant zinnias (annuals) are easy to grow, produce large bright blossoms and attract loads of beneficial insects. I also have plantings of bee balm and echinacia (aka coneflower) which are perennials. In addition, I have a variety of other flowering plants such as blanket flower, irises, assorted wildflowers, peonies, etc.
One of the plants I regularly put in the garden is somewhat the opposite of the flowers named above. That plant is the marigold. I plant these for the sole reason that so many pests hate the smell of them and stay away from the area. I generally put marigolds in spots where I might be planting bush beans and snap peas. Marigolds come in both bush and giant varieties.
I often use controls, particularly insecticidal soap (home made: 1 - 2 tablespoons regular dish washing liquid in a quart of water) when the beneficial population is not yet strong enough to help out. Apply with common spray spray bottle when some pest population gets out of control. This allows spot treatments of a non "chemical" product and/or poisons, rather than indiscriminate blanket spray to control the unwanted visitors and everything else in its path.
Will you have some damage going this route? Very probably yes. Will your fruits and vegetables all have "supermarket" perfect appearance. Probably not. But, you should derive a great deal of satisfaction that you have grown them and you've done no harm (to borrow a vow from the medical profession).
All that being said, here's a short list of common garden helpers you should encourage to visit your plot:
Bats - They take flight at dusk and have a huge appetite for mosquitoes, which is a good thing in your garden due to the fact that mosquitoes favor sucking your blood rather than hunting aphids. Some folks put bat houses in their yards to attract these guys. Like most old cities with lots of church belfries, my neighborhood seems to have a healthy supply of bats without my providing housing. And, obviously, you don't want them inside your home.
Bumble bees - Very busy pollinators. They can sting, but you really have to agitate them to do so. They are not short tempered like hornets.
Damselflies - Like dragonflies (below), but fold their wings against their bodies rather than keep them outstretched. Have same appetites as dragonflies.
Dragonfly protecting our snap peas last June.
Dragonflies - Feast on ants, gnats, mayflies, midges and more. Attracted to spots with water, so keep a birdbath or two filled with clean water all summer long.
Garden snakes (aka garter snakes, aka gardener snakes) - Like many snakes, they will eat whatever they're big enough to catch. Garden snakes are one of my favorites because the really like slugs! I usually see one or two of these snakes in our garden over the summer.
Honey bees - We see very few here anymore due to colony collapse disease. A much missed pollinator.
Ladybugs - They especially like to feast on aphids. *See note below.
Lacewings - Feast on aphids, mealy bugs, mayflies and thrips. The larvae of lacewings are often called "aphid lions" for their love of aphids at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Praying mantis - These very patient but lightning fast guys are stone cold killers of nearly any pest that might show up in your garden.
Spiders - Some spiders spin webs to catch prey and others do not. You probably have both in your garden and they should be welcomed. They will pretty much eat whatever insects they can catch, so you have to hope they snag the bad guys.
Syrphid flies - These excellent pollinators are sometimes confused with honey bees. The seem to be much more prevalent than I may have realized in the past, and may be filling the void left by the loss of honey bees.
*A caution on buying "beneficial" insects to control pests in your garden: In theory, this isn't a bad idea if you have a shortage of ladybugs, etc.. I tried it myself some years ago. The key to trying to increase these populations is timing. If you purchase the insects too early in the season, your new insect buddies will find that your garden doesn't yet have a large enough pest population to support them. If that happens, your purchase will fly off in search of better hunting grounds. In my case, I think I would have fared much better if I had made the purchase in mid June, as opposed to mid May.
I'll see you again soon and I HOPE the weather turns warmer by then!
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