You probably already know about a lot of these garden allies, but I learned a few new tidbits.
Ladybugs — This aphid loving beetle is worth its weight in gold. And they are pretty darned cute.
Lizards — Alligator lizards will search dark basements, garages and bushes for their favorite meal – black widow spiders.
Spiders — The average spider eats about 100 insects a year. He’s one of the good guys.
Toads — One toad can eat between 10,000 and 20,000 slugs, flies, grubs, cutworms or grasshoppers per year.
Bats — Besides being a valuable pollinator, bats consume large quantities of insects. A single little brown bat can catch 600 mosquitoes in one hour.
Bees — In California alone, forty–two different nut, fruit, vegetable, forage and seed crops rely directly on bee pollination.
Green Lacewings — Green Lacewings will eat mites, mealy bugs and other small insects but their favorite meal is aphids.
Ground Beetles — Ground beetles’ favorite insect meals are cutworms, grubs and root maggots. Some even love slugs and snails. To invite them into your garden, place a log or board at one end of your garden.
Hover Flies — These flies look like little flying helicopters. They are some of the garden’s greatest allies. They feed on flower nectar, which makes them excellent pollinators. Their favorite meals are aphids and mealy bugs.
Hummingbirds — These small birds consume more than half their total weight in food everyday and a big part of their diet is insects.
This all ties into last Monday’s posting about being connected to your environment with minimal negative impact. These little creatures work hard for you!
Tagged as:
aphids,
bugs,
hummingbirds,
lizards,
spiders
….if you like things that creep, crawl, crunch and fly. Bugs can be pests, predators or both. Here are some interesting factoids about all those little creepy things we love to hate!
- 75% of all living things on the planet are insects and there are more ants than anything else in the world. (All future picnics are doomed.)
- Scorpions glow when exposed to black light because of phosphorus in skeletons. (They are already creepy enough; do we really need to put them under a black light?)
- Field mice eat black widow spiders. (Ugh.)
- Brown Recluse spiders don’t live in CA, most bites are misdiagnosed. (Great, now I have to worry about other things?)
- No species of scorpion in US is poisonous. Their bite just feels like a bee sting. (The creep-me-out factor is much worse.)
- There has never been any proven case that Bed Bugs transmit any diseases. (That doesn’t make them any more cuddly.)
- No species of tarantula in southwest United States is harmful. (Fine, but I still don’t want to hold one.)
- Palmetto bug is just a fancy name for a cockroach. (Call them whatever you want, but they’re still disgusting.)
- Unlike ticks, chiggers do not feed off blood. Instead, a chigger will insert a “straw” to use for feeding from its host. Its saliva will actually liquefy our skin cells which provides it food. (Oh, they’re just liquifying my skin cells. Whew, what a relief to know they’re not sucking my blood.)
Well, I could just go on and on, but I think we’ve all heard enough, haven’t we?!
Tagged as:
bugs,
Garden Bugs
I was out taking a look around the garden yesterday and some things in the garden are in a sad state of affairs right now.
I had just cleaned up the front porch and refilled Windsock’s food this morning. By the time I came back in the early afternoon, the birds had obviously been having a feast. Cats are supposed to stalk and chase the birds. Windsock, are you listening?
The birds are eating more than their fair share.
I planted a Gloriosa Lily bulb three years ago and every time it stuck it’s head out of the ground, I would stomp it, kick it, squish it, by mistake, of course. Everytime I unintentionally take it to the ground I figure that’s the last I’ll see it. Lo and behold, I came out last week to find the plant thriving from neglect. I decided to be proactive this time around to save it, so I know this is a little tacky, but I want this vine to live even if it means I break a toe!
Gloriosa lily
I thought my citrus were doing fine until I found this on my Satsuma tangerine. Time to do a little reading. I also found some caterpillars on my two tangerines in back that were UGLY! At first glance, it looked like bird poop which worried me because that would be a big bird, but then I realized it was alive. Looking closer, the larvae had symmetrical white spots on a black body, but the creepiest things was its snaky looking head. Ugh! After a little research I discovered that the larvae, known as “orangedogs” are destructive, but they do eventually hatch into Giant Swallowtail butterflies. Check out this site to see some pictures of what I’m talking about.
Citrus Disease problems
I need to pay attention to my watering needs because I found this poor guy completely wilted. I just bought it last week because it was so striking and fortunately it came back nicely after I soaked it for a couple of hours. Way to garden…..NOT!
Water would be a good thing...
On a final note, I caught the rat! Somebody owes me breakfast!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nailed it!
Tagged as:
bugs,
garden pests,
larvae,
pest
Beelzebug* (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. I could use a nap…. (*From the Washington Post Mensa Invitational which is a contest in which readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or [...]
Tagged as:
bugs
Having walked through quite a few Orb spider webs in the last few weeks, I finally decided I ought to look them up on the web. Fortunately, Orb spiders are considered a low-risk spider in terms of toxicity, and they are non-agressive, so we’ve got that going for us. The bite of Orb-Weaving Spiders is [...]
Tagged as:
bugs,
spiders
I don’t know what it is about this bug that I find so appealing. I guess it is always a surprise when I find one. They do camouflage themselves well and usually I find one because I’ve knocked it off whatever plant I’ve moved that was its temporary home. They don’t move very fast! I [...]
Tagged as:
bugs
