Guide to Garden Insects by Mother Earth News

Guide to

GARDEN INSECTS

®

Index Common Garden Pests................................. 4 Beneficial Insects........................................... 7 Using Organic Pesticides............................... 9

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Common Garden Pests

By MOTHER EARTH NEWS Editors

O

ne of the first questions new gardeners ask is, “How do I keep bugs out of my garden?” Well, you don’t.

Insects have refined senses and many can fly long distances, so keeping insects out of a garden is not a realistic goal. Besides, you need them. A complicated food chain exists from the soil to the treetops, and insects are an essential part of a healthy ecosystem. Some are bad guys that damage plants or spread disease, while many more are allies in pollination and overall pest control.

What you don’t need are scads of damaging insects and a short list of beneficials, which is what you may get if you use pesticides that kill a wide range of life forms. Instead, long-time organic gardeners report success achieving a healthy balance between harmful and helpful insects by growing an abundance of herbs and flowers in or near their vegetable gardens. Many more tips for attracting beneficial insects are given in the profiles of common beneficials.

Even in the healthiest gardens, a few pest insects can be

expected to require intervention. Identifying pest insects may be easier than you think, because most insects are able to feed on a narrow range of crops. For example, cabbage worms feed only on cabbage-family crops, while squash bugs stick close to squash. Most of the worst vegetable garden pests feed upon only one plant family.

The 15 pests discussed below are common in a wide range of climates, so you should not be surprised to encounter them in your garden. After you identify them, look closely to see whether beneficials are at work. Proceed to handpick if the pest populations are increasing, or if you know they will from your own experience. Keep notes of when pests appear in your garden, and be ready to prevent problems in future seasons by using floating row covers or changing your planting dates. You will find many other techniques for managing insect pests in these pages, as well as links to appropriate organic pesticides accepted by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI).

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1 Aphids 1

Learn how to control a colony of aphids by attracting beneficial insects, learning organic pest control, and being able to recognize aphid damage as soon as it appears.

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2 Asparagus Beetle

If your asparagus patch looks weak and unhealthy, chances are the asparagus beetle has struck again.

Protect your crop with organic pest control methods, such as attracting beneficial insects and spraying neem. Plus, learn to recognize asparagus beetle damage before it’s too late.

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Cabbage worms beat brassicas and consume cauliflower like nobody’s business. To defeat this garden pest, you must first learn how to identify it and then invite its natural enemies to live in your garden. Trust us, these neighbors won’t get along.

4 Colorado Potato Beetle

You can protect precious nightshade vegetables from Colorado potato beetles by learning how to attract beneficial insects to your organic garden, and by utilizing crop rotation and floating row covers.

5 Corn Earworm

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If you see small green worms wriggling around on your corn, changes are they’re corn earworms.

Learn how to prevent corn earworm damage and naturally treat infected crops.

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6 Cucumber Beetle

As soon as cucumber family crops become available, the cucumber beetles find them and begin to feed. This is your cue to bring out the artillery; row covers and kaolin clay should be your first line of defense.

7 Cutworm

Cutworm collars made from plastic drinking cups or cardboard tissue rolls help protect young seedlings from cutworm damage.

8 Grasshopper 4

Grasshopper damage can devastate organic gardens, particularly in areas with hot, dry weather. Learn how to use floating row covers and other organic gardening techniques for effective grasshopper control.

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9 Japanese Beetle

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Learn how to use organic pesticides and attract natural Japanese beetle predators such as the Tiphia wasp to control the Japanese beetle population in your garden.

10 Mexican Bean Beetle

Create habitat for beneficial insects such as spined soldier beetles, tachinid flies and parasitic wasps to help with organic Mexican bean beetle control.

11 Slug

Garden slugs chew irregular holes with smooth edges in plants, and the damage often appears overnight. Try these slug control techniques to protect your crops.

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12 Squash Bug 10

Squash bugs love pumpkins and squash, and they will sabotage the leaves, stems and fruits of these autumn favorites. For a pestfree squash patch, follow these expert tips for organic squash bug control, including handpicking and installing row covers.

13 Squash Vine Borer

Squash vine borer damage can be devastating to pumpkins and squash.

Protect your patch by learning how to recognize damage before it’s too late, and by handpicking and using row covers.

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14 Tomato Hornworm

Many beneficial insects enjoy feasting on young tomato hornworm caterpillars, including yellow jackets, lady beetles and green lacewing larvae. By attracting these helpful insects and implementing additional controls, such as handpicking and row covers, pesky tomato hornworms could soon be a thing of your gardening past.

15 Whitefly

Wilting leaves in your garden may be a sign of whitefly damage. Learn how to implement controls such as yellow sticky traps, reflective mulch, and insecticidal soap.

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Beneficial Insects

By MOTHER EARTH NEWS Editors

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ay and night, pesticide-free organic gardens are abuzz with activity, much of it a life-and-death struggle between predators and prey. We seldom see much of this natural pest control, in which tiny assassins patrol their surroundings in pursuit of their next meal. Assassin bugs aren’t picky: They will stab, poison and devour a wide range of garden pests, including caterpillars, leafhoppers and bean beetles. Soldier and ground beetles work the night shift, emerging after dark from beneath rocks, mulch and other daytime hiding places to feast upon soft-bodied insects and the eggs of Colorado potato beetles. Aphid lions (the larvae of the lacewing) have a hooked jaw that helps them dispatch huge numbers of aphids, caterpillars, mites and other pests.

Learning about the beneficial insects in your garden will

make it a more fascinating place, and help you tweak it in ways that intensify the work done by wild garden allies. This is often a simple matter of avoiding the use of pesticides (including organic ones) and growing plenty of flowers to provide beneficial insects with pollen and nectar. In greenhouses or other special situations, you may even decide to purchase and release certain lab-raised beneficial insects. This will not be necessary with the beneficial insects described here, because all will naturally gravitate toward a diversified organic garden.

Below we feature the best beneficial insects for your garden, each one beautifully illustrated. Get to know these garden helpers individually and make a plan for how you can incorporate them into your garden as part of your natural pest control strategy.

1 Braconid Wasp

2 Ground Beetle

Braconid wasps play an important role in controlling insect pests. Braconids are beneficial insects that lay their eggs inside or on host insects, and then the maggotlike wasp larvae weaken the host pest.

The busy ground beetles‘ diet can help control slugs, asparagus beetles, caterpillars, Colorado potato beetles, corn earworms, cutworms, squash vine borers and tobacco budworms.

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3 Honeybee

Have you ever wondered, “What do honeybees eat?” If so, and if you’d like to attract these beneficial insects to your garden, this piece crammed full of honeybee information is a good place to start.

4 Hover Fly

Hoverfly larvae eat mealybugs and small caterpillars, and are especially helpful with organic aphid control. Adult hoverflies feed on nectar and pollen, and you can attract them to your garden with flowering plants.

5 Lacewing

Beneficial lacewing larvae prey on aphids, cabbage worms, caterpillar eggs and more. Learn how to attract these garden helpers.

6 Lady Beetle

Lady beetles feed on all sorts of garden pests, including aphids, small caterpillars and insect eggs. They even feed on powdery mildew. Learn how to attract them to your organic garden for natural pest control.

7 Mason Bee

The mason bee is a great pollinator and can work blossoms at a lower temperature than honeybees. Mason bees are so named because they pack mud into their nests, like brick masons.

8 Praying Mantis

The praying mantis is a beneficial predatory insect that provides grasshopper control and more. Learn to create an inviting praying mantis habitat.

9 Predatory Bugs

If your goal is to squash garden pests naturally by attracting beneficial insects, then welcome assassin bugs with open, dirt-covered arms.

10 Soldier Beetle

Brush up on your soldier beetle facts, including what soldier beetles eat, where they live, and how to attract this beneficial insect to your organic garden.

11 Spider

Pest outbreaks could be rare if you have lots of beneficial insects and spiders in the garden. Learn how to attract various types of garden spiders.

12 Tachinid Fly

The Tachinid or “Diptera” species is well worth inviting to your organic garden because of its ferocious appetite for garden pests such as Japanese beetles and grasshoppers.

13 Trichogramma Wasp Itty-bitty trichogramma wasp larvae develop inside of and eat insect eggs, especially those of cabbage worms, codling moths and European corn borers.

14 Yellow Jacket

Yellow jacket wasps feed their young liquefied insects, with caterpillars, flies and spiders comprising the largest food groups during most of the summer. The effect: Adios, garden pests!

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Using Organic Pesticides

By MOTHER EARTH NEWS Editors

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hen faced with a pest problem, gardeners often wish for a solution that comes in a spray bottle. It’s true that many poisons sold in garden centers will kill any, and often all, insects in your garden. But pesticides are hazardous to humans and wildlife, and most will kill beneficial insects along with the problem pests.

Even organic pesticides can kill beneficial insects, so they should be carefully used and only as a last resort. Learn about insect pests often seen in your area and their natural enemies, as well as cultural methods that keep populations low, before you decide to grow a food crop.

The organic pesticides described in these pages pose minimal harm to organisms you don’t want to harm, including humans. These products also are accepted under the National Organic Program Standards, which serves as a framework for certified-organic food production. In turn, the nonprofit Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) evaluates whether or not specific products comply with those standards. OMRI uses a panel of experts that includes farmers, scientists, environmentalists and businesspeople to decide which products should be approved for use by organic growers. Approved products usually display the OMRI seal on their label, or you can check OMRI to see whether a product is approved, restricted, or not allowed.

OMRI has two category codes for permissible products: “A” for allowed and “R” for restricted. Allowed products may be used freely at the grower’s discretion; most of them are soil amendments and organic fertilizers. Many organic pesticides carry a restricted code because they can harm beneficial insects and other wildlife, and thus should be used sparingly.

Although all of the products listed here carry OMRI approval, many fall into the restricted category and should be used only when cultural controls have failed, and always according to label directions.

Two old-time natural pest control remedies, rotenone and sabadilla, are not included here because they are no longer commercially available and thus not likely to be used. Rotenone was once widely used by organic gardeners as the big guns brought out for tough insect pests such as Colorado potato beetles and cabbage worms. Made from the powdered seeds of jicama and other tropical vines, rotenone was a staple in garden dusts and pet flea powders.

Rotenone is no longer approved for use on animals or in gardens, which is a good thing. A recent study has linked exposure to rotenone with a significant increase in Parkinson’s Disease in humans. The only current registered use for rotenone is as a fish-killing agent for targeted invasive species.

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Sabadilla dust made from the dried seeds of a South American lily was once widely used by organic gardeners to control squash bugs, but it is also highly irritating to eyes and lungs, and is toxic to many beneficial insect species. No organic sabadilla products are currently available, and the only registered use for sabadilla products is to control sucking insects on citrus and mango.

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1 Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis)

Learn how to use Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) products to kill harmful caterpillars and pests in your vegetable garden. Bt is one of the safest natural pesticides you can use to control caterpillar pests without harming beneficial insects.

2 Chickens

Chickens may not be an organic pesticide, but they do devour any insect that moves, including grasshoppers, Colorado potato beetles, slugs and more. If you don’t trust chickens to roam among your vegetable and flower beds, feed them captured insects by hand.

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3 Diatomaceous earth (DE)

Diatomaceous Earth (DE) products cut into insects’ bodies, causing them to die naturally of dehydration. When buying DE to use around your house, be sure to buy a product listed as “food grade.”

4 Horticultural oils

Horticultural oils are particularly useful in the organic orchard where they control pests that overwinter in bark crevices. The recommended practice for applying horticultural oils is to spray trees in spring, just before flower buds open.

5 Insecticidal soap

Learn how to use insecticidal soap to combat soft-bodied pests such as aphids, whiteflies and more. Under good storage conditions, insecticidal soap products may last five years or more.

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6 Neem

Neem oil is a derivative of the Asian evergreen tree. A natural steroid, it causes insects to lose their appetite and lose interest in laying eggs. Neem is best used preventively, before pests become a serious problem.

7 Pyrethrum

Organic pyrethrum spray paralyzes insects that come into contact with it and is the strongest insecticide allowed under National Organic Standards guidelines. Learn how to make, apply and store this potent organic pesticide.

8 Spinosad

The biological pesticide spinosad controls all types of caterpillars as well as Colorado potato beetle larvae and blister beetles. Learn how to apply and store this potent organic pesticide for effective organic pest control.

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