When Should You Buy Insects for Your Garden?

If you’re a gardener, you know there’s nothing more discouraging than seeing your tomato vines taken over by a virus, your broccoli covered in aphids, or a squirrel digging up your newly planted garlic bulbs. While gardening requires a certain amount of zen and flexibility when dealing with all the “what ifs,” there is a lot you can do to mitigate problems in advance. Crop rotation – plant crops to avoid viruses and fungi; plant garlic under a metal mesh and, believe it or not, fight pests like aphids along with other insects. Yes, that’s right: you can create your own insect ThunderDome right in your garden.

How insects can help your garden

As with all aspects of the animal kingdom, there is a hierarchy, and most insects have natural predators as well as intended prey. For example, earthworms eat nematodes and then get eaten by bluebirds (all kinds of birds, really, but I love seeing scrub jays actually doing this in my yard). We tolerate spiders because they kill flies, and then those spiders are killed by amphibians. When your garden is out of balance, you can introduce beneficial insects to even the odds again, and in doing so you can avoid the chemicals you might otherwise use to do the same thing.

Ladybugs aren’t really a good choice.

Most people’s first introduction to this beneficial pest control practice is the bags of ladybugs at the big box store that promise to get rid of aphids. If you tried to do this without success, then you were deceived. Ladybugs are not grown in a laboratory – they are collected from the wild, and environmentalists find this problematic . The harvest caused the population to decline enough that the invasive Asian ladybug, an entirely different insect, was able to become established. In fact, you may end up with Asian ladybugs in your batch of ladybugs. Additionally, ladybugs caught in the wild can introduce pests into your garden.

Putting all this aside, ladybugs only live in certain conditions that are not typically met by those who place them in gardens (if they were, you’d naturally end up with tons of ladybugs). Ladybugs love aphids, but not all aphids do. For example, many years ago I was surprised to learn that they do not feed on lupine aphids. Also, bedbugs have to be deployed at dusk, and they prefer moisture. Lastly, ladybugs migrate, so they have no interest in putting down roots in your yard. They’re going to grab a little aphid snack and then GTFO. In short, don’t buy them.

You need to know about your yard before you buy.

If you have the right conditions in your yard, you will create an environment that is attractive to beneficial insects and a balanced ecosystem. The bathhouse invites bats; some bird sanctuaries welcome swallows. Water features will attract frogs and other amphibians, and if you do it right, you might end up with a possum or two. These animals will help keep snails, slugs, aphids, rodents and other pests under control. You can also choose non-toxic methods such as sticky traps and tape before introducing any living things into your yard.

If these methods are not possible or you still need a push, you will need to follow a few steps before purchasing beneficial insects. First, what specific pests are you having problems with? This is very important because it determines what benefits to acquire. You also need to know your current climate. What is the temperature day and night? This is critical for deployment. You also need an assessment of how serious the problem is.

Some tools to help create a balanced ecosystem in your yard:

• Cedar Bat House: $100.95.

• Bluebird and Swallow Birdhouse: $49.95.

• Garden Water Feature: $95.99.

Green lacewings, assassin bugs and tiny pirate bugs.

Most of us suffer from soft-bodied pests such as aphids, and beneficial substances such as green lacewings , assassin bugs or small pirate bugs can help control them. What you choose will depend on the questions above: Small bugs act quickly, but assassin bugs are more heat tolerant. Lacewings are a gentler method of pest control, but not for serious infestations. How you place the insects will depend on where the pests are actually located – whether you are releasing them into the soil or onto the plants.

Nematodes

Nematodes are another beneficial substance you may have heard of. These microscopic organisms can help control pests that live in the soil or are in the pupal stage, so they can get rid of all types of moths, weevils, cutworms, grubs and crickets, even thrips and termites. There are different types of nematodes, so you’ll need to learn more about your specific pest species.

Mantis

If you’ve seen gardeners freak out when they find praying mantises in their garden, there’s a reason for that. These adorable characters are great at controlling pests in the garden, and you can buy them in an egg box called an ootheca and introduce them to your garden. Like all the others mentioned above, these insects are very specific about conditions: they like temperatures above 60 degrees.

To buy these bugs, you’ll need to skip the big box stores and go to a specialist like Arbico or Sound Horticultural . The support service will help you figure out which bugs to use, how many, where and when.

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