TGIF but watch out for these bad boys….
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spiders
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!
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Foggy mornings serve a purpose in the garden. A little respite from the heat for some plants and a way to hydrate for others. Another bonus with the fog this time of year is what appears – a little surprise in the early morning! Enjoy!
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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.
That's a little spooky!
The bite of Orb-Weaving Spiders is not considered to be toxic to humans. They are a non-aggressive group of spiders and they seldom bite. It does say on the web, “Be careful not to walk into their webs at night – the fright of this spider crawling over one’s face can be terrifying and may cause a heart attack, particularly to the susceptible over 40 year olds.” My arachnoleptic fits have been bad enough, now I have to worry about a heart attack?!
Up close and personal - so glad I didn't walk through this guy's web!
These spiders magically appear in August and they seem to stick around for about a month, then one day you realize they have disappeared. The webs are spectacular, sometimes as large as a circular web of 6 feet or more, between buildings and trees or shrubs. The webs snare flying insects, such as, flies and mosquitoes so lots of times you’ll see the spider eating something it has caught. This morning I found this spider feasting on a big grasshopper.
Munching Mr. Grasshopper
I walked through this one's web on Sunday morning. Yeeeeiiiiiikes!!!
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*ARACHNOLEPTIC FIT (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
I was okay when I walked through the web but when I saw the big spider sitting on my shoulder out of the corner of my eye, that did it. Not the best way to get your heart rate up!
(*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 changing one letter, and supply a new definition. I thought this was very appropriate!)
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