Posted on 04/28/2012 6:03:19 AM PDT by orsonwb
Learn how to utilize a technique called Integrated Pest Management to control pests in our garden...
(Excerpt) Read more at howdogardener.com ...
Zombie rabbits are the worst.
Stinkbugs must put a lot of store in their repulsive stench when squashed, I guess.
They’re so slow and ponderous, they’re almost like some prehistoric throwback.
A couple of years ago I saw some tomato horn worms, (big green things) with white cocoons stuck all over it. Turns out the Braconid wasp was responsible.
The wasp injects the worm with the larvae and they feed on the worm. I actually managed to capture some pics of the wasps emerging from the worms.
Death the horn worms! Actually the worms were on a Passion flower plant, not our tomatoes.
I suspect that many gardeners consider any bug to be a bad bug and then start “spraying.”
I recently learned about the assassin bug, which looks like a very sinister garden pest with a long proboscis, but actually uses it to impale other harmful insects and sucks out their innerds.
Not me. I wish I knew the dance I could do to communicate to the bees in my front yard flowers that there are blooming cherry trees in the back yard that need pollinating.
Last season I experimented with a hotsauce/murphy oil soap concoction vs using pesticides.. It worked fine for me. I had to cover my lettuce with a mesh netting to keep the wasps/hornets from their daily take.
Local DFW organic guy Howard Garrett’s website: http://www.dirtdoctor.com. He’s advocated IPM for years. Trichogramma wasps, Ladybugs, Green Lacewings, etc. to battle the bad bugs. Texas is using the Phorid fly to kill Fire Ants.
Around here we call them tobacco worms lol
Always fun to show a young one their first one,,,they
can get pretty darn big and eat a pretty good part of
a leaf if I get late on a spraying Orthene
The more I study organic gardening, the more I'm convinced that is the way to go. It is more expensive and time consuming to set up but the payoff is in the years following of no tilling or fertilizers.
Garden ping?
” I actually managed to capture some pics of the wasps emerging from the worms”.
That sounds like a scene from “Alien”.
I looked and saw that whatever it was was moving. What it turned out to be were two tiny praying mantis that must have been taken by the breeze.
We relocated them on to a blueberry bush. We bought some mantis eggs about 15-20 years ago and have had them in the yard ever since.
My bees didn't touch my wisteria, they left that to the bumblebees and others, yet they covered the holly when it bloomed, which the larger bees didn't touch. Honey bees don't work red clover at all, but are all over the white and yellow clovers.
I’m a big fan of Diatomaceous earth. Its a completely non toxic controller of many insect pests and can even be used for de-worming of pets. I have a bag of it on my porch that’s rated for food grade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth
One of God’s little miracles.
Chipmunks suck. Yeah, they try to look cute but they can destroy a garden in nothing flat!!
This windy hot dry weather in centex keeps the bugs off, but it dessicates the plants. Even the ones at my favorite nursery are dried out and not wanting to flower.
Speaking of stink bugs one somehow invaded my ice maker and I almost drank it down in my coke.It crunched like a piece of plastic. Very disgusting.
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