Thursday, June 22, 2017

Insects

I am not a fan of just randomly killing insects.  I think you can have a well balanced ecosystem that allows some give and take between the insects and your crop.  After all they were almost directly responsible for pollinating your plants.
These perfect little cuts are just little leaf cutter bees taking their little cut out of your plants and they will fly them home and wrap them up in little tubes and make homes.  You can't spray anything on your plants to stop them, they aren't eating anything so they will never ingest the poison you spray,  they won't kill your plants.  If you are out for perfection in your garden and can't handle a little bit of their "cut" of the production process you will drive yourself crazy trying to stop them when they are doing no damage to your crops (fruit production).

I have had them cut zucchini leaves and some cuke leaves but mostly bougainvillea leaves.  I'm not eating the leaves so if they happen to pollinate something on their way I will save my money and time and let them take whatever they want.  They have never killed a plant I have ever had so they pose no threat to my crops (fruit production).

I guess I am a big fan of the insects that live in my garden.  Ants are not stealing from me, leaf cutter bees are not destroying my plants, praying mantis are the guardians of the realm, lady bug larvae are horrible looking spiked nasties that eat 10x their weight in aphids in a day, lace wings are magical looking little creatures that are waiting to eat whiteflies, aphids, thrips, scale, and spider mites. Why spend all the money killing everything when you can plant some plants to attract the good guys and let them kill all the others?

Plant dill and let it go, the lady bugs will lay eggs in the umbels and when the aphids start going crazy the larvae will show up and pillage the aphids. Once the ladybugs show up it seems everyone else joins in.  If they don't you can usually find the good guys at a good nursery in the spring.  Once you get some ladybugs, mantids etc you will be a harbor for them and they tend to stay.

I guess I like letting nature work with me rather than fighting it the entire time.  It has been around a lot longer than I have and been working just fine without me.

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