03/05/2020
Attracting Beneficial Insects to Your Garden!
Most of us have heard the phrase "If you build it they will come" from the classic movie Field of Dreams, But what you may not know is "if you grow it they will come" (I do not know if anyone has said this or not). Meaning if you grow plants with fragrant flowers it will attract beneficial insects. For example, I planted a Mexican Sunflower and Dill in a container near my raised garden and know I have ladybugs and assassin bugs calling my garden there home! today I counted around 5 ladybugs and over 20 assassin bugs.
Growing the flowers is one important step to attracting beneficial insects to your garden if you want them to stay and increase in numbers, they will need a good supply of bugs to eat and enticing habitat to protect them from birds and other larger predators.
Food Source for the Beneficial Insects
Ladybugs and assassin bugs are voracious feeders and require a lot to eat and while they do like the nectar from flowers, they need other bugs to sustain them and their young. for this reason, I have stopped trying to find ways to kill/remove harmful insects from my garden. I know that this might be a difficult thing to imagine. in fact, I believed for the longest time that I needed to find organic solutions to remove pests from my garden. Then after significant research and fewer hours to commit to handpicking pests, I turned to nature to give me a hand. To my surprise, my garden has not been happier. The number one problem I encountered with even organic pesticides is the indiscriminate nature in which it kills insects in the garden. By removing pesticides from your garden and planting fragrant flowers around/within your garden you will attract beneficial insects to your garden that will seek out and eat the pest within your garden.
Habitat for your Beneficial Insects
When it comes to creating the ideal habitat for your new insect helpers it is important to have cover from predatory animals and birds and a source of water. The method I use to create an ideal habitat within my garden is by incorporating intensive gardening. If you have not heard of intensive gardening it is when you plant your seeds/ plants extremely close together. By doing this it accomplishes a couple of things for your garden one as mentioned above provides a place for your insects to hide from predatory birds and two it protects the soil from the sun allowing the soil to retain moisture longer. A side benefit of intensive planting is that it blocks out several weeds from sprouting. Intensive planting also decreases the chance anyone plant will be devastated from pests that arrive in your garden. This will effectively increase the number of plants that survive placing more food on your table.
If you are looking to grow a healthy garden and not particularly worried about how your garden looks as long as it produces healthy produce for YOU and YOUR family and not the Pests in your garden then consider a No Drama Garden!
