I want to show you something I’m very excited about it’s this long bud of blooming flowers. It has a purpose you see, it’s an Insectary.
Now, what an Insectary is all about? It’s about providing support for good bugs. You see out here in my vegetable garden everyday it’s all out war. It’s a good bugs against bad bugs and by having an Insectary you’re supporting the good bug population.
You see it’s a green way of dealing with pests. So, what I have here is quite a blend of flowers that actually support a lot of the beneficial insects that we have out here. You see beneficial insects are divided into three lifestyles if you wilt.
First, you have the predators. Like a Ladybug. Ladybugs love to eat aphids, and then you have what we called Parasitoids. For instance, there’s a little wasps called Trichogramma wasps. Now, this is not a wasps that will sting you or anything, but it’s really cool because it lays its eggs within the eggs of a bad bug. A little wasps patches out there’s a larvae and then eats the egg that has been laid in destroying the bad bug population. Pretty cool.
Then the third category of beneficial insects is among the Pollinators. Hey, let’s face it without pollinators we wouldn’t have food to eat, so those include bees and butterflies and a lot of things that were familiar with that help transfer pollen from one flower to the next.
Now, if you want to create an environment that’s so attractive to these beneficials you need to know that they need water for instance. A good source of water it can be in the form of the bird bath or just tools of water. It’s important.
Second, mulch. Having some mulch where some of them can get up under during the day and come out at out is very helpful. And then a food source and that’s what this Insectary is all about.
An in the Insectary, you want a lot of diversity. I mean, in here you can see Zinnias big ones and little ones and then Cosmos, some Marigolds and Sunflowers, Fennel and Dill as well as Buckwheat.
Now, what you need to know is that you don’t have to have Insectary this large. Diversity is the key and you don’t have to make it this big. You see this is 8 x 80 feet of course, we’re serving insects for a full acre of vegetable garden.
Now, you might think that this requires a lot of water. Well, actually it just took tilling up the soil, adding in some good amendment, some organic fertilizer and we just sowed the seeds and look what happened in just four to five weeks, you can see that eventually every seed germinated and now they are coming into full bloom.
Now, the thing to keep in mind when you’re trying to attract beneficials to your garden, using pesticide is a no, no because you see the pesticide doesn’t know the difference a good bug and a bad bug. It kills everything, so that’s why it’s important to attract the good bugs and let the good bugs take care of the bad bugs.
If you’d like more information on this topic or any other gardening topic just check out my website, PAllenSmith.com.
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