By Molly Day
Submitted Story
November 14, 2007 07:24 pm
—
Bugs.
Gardeners can’t live without them as pollinators and soil aerators but we do not appreciate their appetite for munching our vegetables and flowers. In fact, they eat one-third of the earth’s food crops every year.
Some interesting bug facts from science and education sites on the Internet include:
• There are more than 90,000 known species of insects in the world.
• Cockroaches breathe through their bodies so they can live up to a month without a head.
• It is no surprise that ants are sleepless — they live in colonies of up to half a million roommates.
• Aphids are born pregnant and can give birth 10 days after being born themselves.
• The first winged insects on the earth, dragonflies, use their four wings to fly at 60 miles per hour.
• Citronella candles work because mosquitoes feet are irritated by it. Only the females bite when seeking protein to produce the next generation. They are responsible for more deaths than any other animal.
• No two spider webs are the same.
• Only male crickets chirp and they talk only to other males.
• Lobsters have blue blood but insects have yellow blood.
The female black widow spider’s venom is more potent than a rattlesnake’s.
• There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
• Only one newly laid queen bee survives because the first one destroys all the others so she alone can reign.
Other Internet bug information is available from the Oklahoma State University
http://www.ento.okstate.edu/factshts.htm, http://tolweb.org/tree, www.whatsthatbug.com,
www.insectclopedia.com, www.intothewoods.us/garden-bugs.html.
Good bugs include praying mantis, bees, green lacewing larvae, ladybugs, wheel bugs, ground beetles and big-eyed bugs. Gardeners have to be able to distinguish them from the pests.
One of the Web sites dedicated to chemical free pest management,
http://organicgardenpests.com shows destructive pests pictured in every life stage so you can see what’s what.
To protect pets, children and the environment in general, gardeners look for methods included in integrated pest management, organic gardening, sustainable agriculture and least toxic pest management programs.
Here are some ideas from the book, “Bugs, Slugs and Other Thugs” by Rhonda Massingham Hart.
• Slugs: Shade garden plants, leafy plants, marigolds, you name it, the slugs will eat it. Any time you see a silvery trail, a slug is nearby. They thrive in decaying vegetation; so clean the bed where they are. Remove dead leaves.
Another deterrent to slugs is scratchy surfaced mulch scattered on the ground. For example, crushed eggshells, limestone, wood ashes, sawdust, rosemary, oak leaves and other barriers like diatomaceous earth.
Crafty gardeners can fold 1.5-inch strips of aluminum foil and form a circle around vulnerable plants. Anchor the circles with hairpins. A new product on the market is a .002-inch thick copper sheet on a roll, that is cut into strips to place around plants and fruit tree trunks.
• Garden clean up: Hart says that cleaning up the garden and planting a cover crop can reduce next summer’s insect problems.
• Cover crops: There is still time to plant winter rye, members of the mustard family, vetch and many beans. They are grown over the winter and incorporated into the ground early in the spring to feed the soil.
• Solarization: Basically, the soil is covered with plastic so it is heated enough to kill insects and their eggs over a 90-day period.
To solarize a bed, remove the remains of any plants and rake the soil smooth. Water it well enough to create a 100-percent humidity under the plastic. This could also be done before the next rain.
Dig or rototill a 6-inch-deep trench all the way around the bed or plot. Lay 3-to-6-mil plastic over the entire bed, including the trench, overlapping it where the wind might blow apart separate sheets. Fill the trench back in to secure the plastic.
To speed up the process, add a second layer of plastic. The bed will be pest free in 30-days with double plastic.
• Flea beetles: The adults live all winter in weeds and other garden debris, according to Hart. Each female flea beetle lays 100-eggs that hatch in the spring. The tiny bugs then munch tiny holes all over the tender plants.
Each type of flea beetle eats one type of plant. The best way to prevent them is to plant insect resistant varieties.
Row covers can protect young plants from becoming unwilling hosts. Herb or garlic tea sprays can work as can BT or rotenone.
Hart’s book has advice to prevent or get rid of anything that is bugging your garden. In the back there is a five-page chart of flowers and vegetables, the insects that damage them, and what to do about it.
Written in a user-friendly style, “Bugs, Slugs and Other Thugs: Controlling Garden Pests Organically” was published in 1991 by Storey Publishing, 214 pages. It can be ordered through a bookstore or www.storey.com, (413) 346-2184, and, used copies are available through Internet booksellers.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.