Our family moved to the area about a year ago. That means we had to start our garden over from scratch. It also means we had to adjust to different types of garden bugs, both pests and beneficial bugs. Luckily, we learned about many of the local pests from one of the Build It Up workshops, and we had our Build It Up binder that contains so much useful information about identifying and controlling common garden pests. Despite having some losses due to pests, we now have a game plan for how to manage garden bugs starting in spring.
One of the first offenders to visit our garden was the cabbage moth, who came later in the gardening season than we expected. As the name implies, cabbage moths love to munch on cabbage plants, as well as other brassicas. While it was a little late in the game to prevent cabbage moths, we did learn that prevention is key. We received some lovely garden hoops and insect netting from Build It Up that we will use to cover our young brassica plants in the future to prevent the cabbage moths from laying eggs on the plants in the first place.
Another offender that visited our garden was the tomato hornworm. Tomato hornworms can be difficult to spot because their bright green color blends right in with the tomato plants, but you can usually find them if you look for areas that have been eaten on the tomato plant. We handpicked them off the plants and fed them to our chickens. What we did not anticipate is that we would find some tomato hornworms that had been parasitized by a female braconid wasp. Those hornworms had many tiny white cocoons attached to their bodies, where a new generation of wasps would eventually emerge. We left those hornworms in place so the new wasps could emerge and breed more parasitic wasps that could benefit our garden in the future.
In addition to the braconid wasp, we also spotted some other beneficial insects, like praying mantises, swallowtail butterfly larvae, butterflies, ladybugs, and several types of bees. In order to attract more of these beneficial garden allies in the future, we plan to expand our pollinator garden this coming spring. We will include native wildflowers, as well as flowers known to attract beneficial insects, like Sweet Alyssum, which attracts lacewings, parasitic wasps, syrphid flies and tachinid flies. With more beneficial insects in the garden, we anticipate pests will be less of a problem. However, we will continue to utilize manual removal of pests as a strategy, along with the use of organic sprays, as needed.
