You’ve tilled the soil, sprouted seeds or carefully chosen your plants, watered faithfully, and finally your plants are growing and you can almost taste that fresh tomato or crisp cucumber. But it’s another thing to eat your vegetables before you get the chance. After all your hard work, those nasty critters are feasting on you. But you don’t have to spray your garden with harmful chemicals to protect your crop. Let the bugs do the work for you!

Using good bugs to eliminate insect pests that damage or destroy your plants is just one way you can manage your garden without harmful pesticides. Remember, most of the bugs in your garden are either harmless or actually helping your plants. When you stop using pesticides and have a variety of plants growing near or in your garden, you will attract many allies. There are two types of useful insects. They are predators: those that eat their prey, and parasitoids: those that lay their eggs on or inside their hosts, eventually killing them.

To take advantage of these natural predators, you’ll want to turn your garden into a friendly habitat where beneficial insects make themselves at home.

Be sure to provide:

o Shelter: Keep the soil covered with plenty of organic matter.

o Clean Environment: Never put harmful chemicals in the habitat of your beneficial insect. If you use any insecticide to kill pests in your garden, you are also at great risk of getting rid of useful insects. When you stop using all chemicals, you may temporarily experience a sudden increase in pests. It could take a while for the population of beneficial insects to grow to adequate levels

o Food: Keep in mind that most predators and many parasites also use pollen and nectar for food. You’ll want to include plants that flower at different times during the growing season so that you always have a source of pollen and nectar.

o Water: Keep the soil moist and water the plants in the morning. You can also provide shallow water-filled dishes or birdbaths with a couple of rocks sticking out of the water’s surface, so insects have access to plenty of water.

o Create your garden habitat to quickly attract beneficial insects. Plant annuals like alyssum, cosmos, sunflowers, and marigolds. At the same time, plant perennial flowers and herbs, such as yarrow, lavender, mint, fennel, angelica, and tansy. After you have harvested the dill, parsley, carrots, and cilantro, let the garden plants flower; your insect allies love them.

Here is a list of some of the beneficial insects you want to attract to your garden.

APHID MOSQUITO

The aphid mosquito is a small mosquito-like fly with long legs and long antennae that eats aphids. Aphid gnat larvae are effective predators of aphids.

Plants that attract aphids include:

or Apples, Blueberries

or Cabbage, Dill

or ornamental shrubs

DRAGONFLY or DAMSELFLY

Dragonflies vary in color, have long narrow bodies 1″ to 2″ inches long, large compound eyes, and 4 transparent wings. They feed on mosquitoes, aphids and other pests.

Plants that attract dragonflies include:

or Caraway, Cosmos

or fennel

or goldenrod

GROUND BEETLE

Ground beetles vary in shape and color, but are usually shiny and have jointed legs. Black is a common color, sometimes with a metallic sheen of another color on its wings. They rarely fly, preferring to run when disturbed, and usually hide in brush piles or debris. They are dark and about 3/4 inch long. They hunt at night in leaf litter for insect eggs and larvae, and feed on cutworms, rootworms, slugs, caterpillar moths, aphids, flies, chiggers, earwigs, and snails.

Plants that attract ground beetles include:

or evening primrose

or Mint, Rosemary, Thyme

or white clover

HOVERFLY

Hoverflies (also called hoverflies) look like small bees, with yellow, black, or white bands, but they move through the air like flies. Adults must feed on nectar before reproducing, so they are good pollinators. They lay their eggs near aphids or other soft-bodied insects. When the eggs hatch, the hungry larvae eat up to 60 aphids each day. They also eat mealybugs, small caterpillars, and other small insects.

Plants that attract hoverflies include:

o Caraway, mint, catnip, cilantro, cosmos, daisy, dill

o Fennel, Goldenrod, Lavender, Morning Glory

o Parsley, Mint, Peppermint, Sunflowers

o Queen Anne’s lace, sweet alyssum, wild buckwheat, wild carrot

LACEWING (the most effective predators you can buy)

Lacewings have light green bodies, transparent lacy wings, and are 1/2″ to 3/4″ inch long. The larvae are small, gray-brown in color and narrow, resembling small alligators. Larvae and adults eat aphids, mites, caterpillars, mealybugs, leafhoppers, insect eggs, whiteflies, and other small insects. Individual white eggs are found attached to the ends of stiff, inch-long threads.

Plants that attract lacewings include:

o Angelica, Caraway, Cilantro and Cosmos

o Dandelion, dill, fennel, tansy

o Queen Anne’s Lace, Sweet Alyssum, Wild Carrot, Yarrow

LADYBUG

Ladybugs feed on aphids and other soft-bodied insects, such as aphids, mealybugs, mealybugs, and spider mites, as well as insect eggs. Ladybugs eat up to 50 aphids per day. If ladybugs lay eggs, each larva will eat around 400 aphids before beginning their pupal stage. Spray non-crop plants with sugar water to attract ladybugs.

Plants that attract ladybugs include:

or Angelica, Butterfly Grass, Sweet Alyssum

o Carpet bugleweed, cilantro, cosmos, dandelion and dill

o Fennel, Goldenrod, Tansy, Wild Carrot, Yarrow

MASON BEE

These bees look more like house flies than honey bees, but they are good pollinators for fruit trees. Most mason bees live in holes and can be attracted by drilling short holes in a block of wood.

Plants that attract mason bees include:

o Fruit trees with staggered flowering (apricot, peach, plum, cherry, apple and pear)

o Strawberries, Raspberries, Blackberries,

roses

MINIATURE PARASITIC WASP (braconid, chalcid, ichnemid, trichogram)

These tiny wasps will defend your garden against aphids, caterpillars, tomato fruitworms, tent caterpillars, whiteflies, cabbageworms, and hornworms. Parasitic wasps lay up to 300 eggs in moth or butterfly eggs. They don’t live very long, so time their release to coincide with the presence of pest eggs. Braconid, calcid, and ichnemic wasps are much larger than trichograms and lay eggs in or on the caterpillar. Hatching eggs eventually kill the host. These wasps do not sting people or pets.

Plants that attract parasitic wasps include:

o Allium, caraway, coriander, cosmos, saffron, dill

o Fennel, Goldenrod, Parsley, Queen Anne’s Lace

or Sweet Alyssum, Tansy, Wild Buckwheat, Wild Carrot, Yarrow

PIRATE MISTAKE

The pirate bug eats aphids, thrips, moths, whiteflies, and insect eggs. It lays its eggs on the leaf surface near its prey. The cycle from egg to adult takes only three weeks.

Plants that attract pirate bugs include:

o Cosmos, fennel, Queen Anne’s lace

or Sweet Alyssum, Tansy

or Wild Buckweed, Wild Carrot

ROVE BEETLE

Wandering beetles resemble small scorpions when they hold the tip of their abdomen in the air. They are 1/10″ to 1″ long and, depending on the species, eat aphids, springtails, mites, nematodes, slugs, snails, fly eggs, and maggots. These beetles thrive on leaf litter, decaying fallen fruit, and loose bark from fallen and decaying trees.

SOLDIER BEETLE

The soldier beetle has a narrow, black abdomen and a bright red head, and is about 1/2 inch long. It resembles a firefly, but it cannot produce light. The larva is orange with black markings. Soldier beetles eat aphids, caterpillars, grasshopper eggs, other soft-bodied insects, and beetle larvae.

Plants that attract soldier beetles include:

or echinaceas, fennel,

or Goldenrod, Hydrangea

or Milkweed

TACHINID FLY

Tachinid flies look a bit like houseflies. They can be brown, gray or black, and some are very hairy. They feed on caterpillars, including cutworms, codling moths, tent caterpillars, cabbageworms, pumpkin worms, and gypsy moth larvae.

Plants that attract tachinid flies include:

or Caraway, Cosmos, Dill

or Fennel, Parsley, Mint

o Queen Anne’s Lace, Sweet Alyssum, Tansy

You can see dill, fennel, and sweet alyssum appear again and again on the list above, and you can attract many beneficial insects just by including these three plants in your garden. By helping good bugs thrive, you can grow more natural, healthier vegetables for you and your family, and keep pesticides out of your food and our water supply. For more tips and great links, check out the link below to Organic Eden. Happy gardening!