Tag Archives: beneficial insects

10 Plants to Attract Beneficial Insects to Your Garden

May 20, 2021 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Many insects play vital roles in helping our gardens grow. Flies, bees, butterflies, and moths pollinate crops while spiders, beetles, mantids, parasitoid wasps, lacewings, and other predators feed on pests. On the soil level, worms, millipedes, and other decomposers help turn organic matter into usable nutrients for your plants.

Attracting some of these insects to your garden can reduce pest pressure, help build healthy soil, and improve yields. Here are ten plants you can grow this season to help attract some of these important insects to your garden:

Buckwheat

This tasty grain and fantastic green manure crop is also excellent for attracting pollinators and parasitoid wasps. It grows quickly, and both wasps and bees love the flowers! Sowing a patch and have it buzzing with activity when flowers appear in as little as six weeks!

Dara

This delicate flower is closely related to Queen Anne’s Lace but isn’t as aggressive in the garden. The flower clusters in pink, dark purple, and white attract various pollinators, including tachinid flies that parasitize squash bugs.

Creeping Thyme

Slow-growing at first, Creeping Thyme will eventually form dense mats. This thick ground cover provides excellent shelter and shade for predatory beetles as well as decomposers like millipedes.

Fennel

Fennel has beautiful delicate flowers that attract tiny wasps and other pollinators. Its leaves are also a food source for some swallowtail butterfly caterpillars.

Mint

Like thyme, mint is a great way to create dense shady areas of foliage that are multi-purpose. You can harvest mint for tea and culinary uses while it provides habitat for decomposers and predatory beetles. The flowers are a favorite with bees.

We’re currently out of stock of mint seed, but you may be able to get a start from a friend. Alternatively, other plants in the mint family that work well include lemon balm or anise-hyssop.

Sweet Alyssum

Sweet Alyssum forms low, spreading mounds with fragrant, tiny white flowers that are excellent for attracting bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. It’s long-blooming, especially when spent blooms are cut back. It also provides shade and shelter for ground-dwelling beneficial insects.

Echinacea

This native flower can help you attract a variety of butterflies and bees to your garden. It’s also drought-tolerant and medicinal.

Dill

Like fennel and Dara, dill’s tiny flowers are attractive to many small beneficial insects, including parasitoid wasps, flies, and bees. It will do double-duty when it’s time to make pickles!

Rudbeckia

Sometimes known as Black-eyed Susan, it has composite flowers which will attract bees, hoverflies, parasitoid wasps, and robber flies. It’s also a great low-maintenance planting for an untended space. Rudbeckia self-sows and naturalizes aggressively.

Zinnias

These are the workhorse of any flower garden. Zinnias are easy to grow and will bloom all summer, especially if you keep up with deadheading. They’re excellent for attracting bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.

Bonus: Welcome-to-the-Garden Pollinator Collection

Support pollinators all season with this special collection of 13 old-fashioned single-blossomed heirloom, open-pollinated flowers and herbs. It includes calendula, echinacea, cosmos, sweet alyssum, bachelor’s button, cleome, sunflowers, rudbeckia, beebalm, phlox, and zinnia.

We give 30% of your purchase of this mix to the Piedmont Environmental Council for their “Buy Fresh Buy Local” Food Guide.

Additional Tips

Avoid using pesticides. Even organic pesticides can negatively impact beneficial insects the same way that they’re intended to harm pests. Opt for integrated pest management instead.
Let things get a little messy and provide natural, wild habitat whenever possible. Let part of your lawn grown, leave standing dead plant material, don’t get rid of autumn leaves, and let trees and shrubby areas grow.
Build an insect hotel! You can find instructions here.

Garden Advice

Combating Mexican Bean Beetles

May 29, 2018 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Beans seem like the ultimate beginner crop. They’re easy to grow and save seed from, they’re nitrogen fixing and unfussy about soil conditions, and there’s tons of varieties for gardeners to choose from. They’re also a great source of protein for those looking to produce more of their own diet. Beans are perfect until you come out to your garden to find all parts of the plant have been thoroughly chewed on.

Mexican bean beetles can become a huge problem for gardeners hoping for a great bean crop. You may first notice them by the damage done to the leaves of your plants. Bean beetles eat the leaves from the underside and leave them with a lace-like appearance. If left to continue they will eventually kill the plant. They also eat the beans and you may notice chunks missing from them or a brown, scabby spots.

The beetles themselves are easy to identify. They lay small yellow eggs in clusters glued to the underside of the leaves. The larvae are bright yellow and spiny and will stand out on your bean plants. As adults they look like a light orange colored ladybug and are in fact as species of ladybug. Note that other species of ladybug are beneficial and eat harmful insects and aphids.

There are several ways to combat bean beetles and what works well for one person may not work well for everyone. Every garden is unique.

Use Neem Oil

Neem oil can be purchased as an OMRI (Organic Materials Institute) certified pesticide or fungicide derived from neem seeds. It’s effective at combating Mexican Bean Beetles however it may harm beneficial insects in your bean patch as well.

Handpick

Not the most fun option, but some people find hand picking to be effective. You can just smash the eggs and pick off the larvae and beetles and place them in a bucket of water and a little dish soap to kill them. However if the beetles are particularly abundant in your garden or you have a large bean patch it may be difficult to keep up with them.

Let Chickens Eat Them

Most of the time it’s good to keep your chickens out of the garden. You don’t want them eating your harvest or digging up seedlings in their quest for grubs. However if you have bean beetles you may want to let your chickens into your bean patch for a snack.

Install Row Cover

Although it may seem like a drastic and expensive option row cover is very effective if used from the start of the season. It can be used multiple years.

Use Milky Spore Powder

Milky Spore is a bacteria that kills Japanese beetles however some gardeners say that they’ve successfully used it to kill Mexican Bean Beetle larvae. Milky Spore Powder is OMRI certified and safe to use on organic gardens.

Plant Late or Early

Mexican bean beetles don’t hatch out in the early spring or fall so you may be able to get a crop in before or after they’re really an issue.

Try Different Varieties

Some varieties will attract more bean beetles than others. If you find one that’s a favorite you may be able to use it as a trap crop to draw the beetles away from your other varieties. You can burn your trap crop plants and the beetles on them.

Help Their Predators

There are many creatures that feed on Mexican bean beetles including toads, some birds, several species of parasitic wasp, tachinid flies, and spined soldier bugs. By creating habitat for them in your garden you may be able to reduce your bean beetle problem. Some insects like parasitic wasps and spined soldier bugs can also be purchased and released into your garden.

Don’t let bean beetles stop you from planting beans. There’s plenty of ways to combat bean beetles so you can still have an excellent harvest.

Pin it for later.

Garden Advice

DIY Insect Hotel

April 10, 2018 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Insect hotels are an easy way to create habitat for beneficial insects in or near your garden. It’s basically the same concept as a bird house but for bugs instead. You can make yours to help attract solitary bees, wasps, predatory beetles, lacewings, hoverflies and more. These insects play an important role in your garden’s ecosystem, pollinating plants, and feeding on pests.

To get started I’ll discuss the insect hotel I made as an example. It is made entirely from scrap and natural materials. The outside is scrap plywood and tin and the compartments are filled with bamboo, a log with drilled holes, pine cones, sticks, bark, hay, and bricks. What you make yours from is up to you. You can utilize what you have to create something fairly rustic like I did or get real fancy.

Materials

The bamboo and logs with drilled holes were added with solitary bees and wasps in mind. They both use or create holes, frequently in woody material, to lay their eggs. Predatory beetles and hoverflies can find places to hide and over winter among the pine cones, sticks, and bark. The hay provides good habitat for lacewings and the bricks add larger holes for spiders and other insects to use.

The most important part is add a mix of materials. Think about all the crevices and spaces you normally find insects in and mimic these in your design. If you’d like to attract a specific insect to your garden you can also search for its habitat preferences. Does it like cool damp places close to the ground? Or sunny, dry places up high?

It’s okay if your insect hotel is completely different from the one I created. Just as there’s a wide variety of insects that could use a helping hand there’s a wide variety of habitats you can use your insect hotel to create. A quick Pinterest or Google image search will turn up hundreds of inspiring ideas to help you create something that fits your needs. People have made giant insect towers from stacked pallets and little painted boxes that hang on the wall or fence. You can use hollow logs, stacked cinder blocks, or old terra-cotta pots to stuff with material.

Construction

To put mine together I measured and then cut the plywood using a circular saw. From there I screwed the plywood together to form a box using some screws leftover from another project. Then I decided to add more plywood to create small compartments or shelves so I could easily add different types of material. I found a perfect size scrap piece of tin that I hand for the roof and screwed that on as well. I haven’t yet, but I need to staple on some scrap chicken wire I have to hold in loose materials like the pine cones. This will also allow me to stuff the materials in tighter.

If you don’t have access to power tools think about ready made containers you could use rather than building a box like I did. Maybe you have an old wooden crate handy or could use an old pot, block, or hollow log like I mentioned above.

Tips

There are a few general ideas that can help you make the most of your insect hotel. First while some insects like damp conditions you might still consider putting something that sheds water on the top. That way your materials will last longer and even if it sits directly on the ground you can keep the upper layers dry for certain species.

Secondly it’s best to use compostable or recyclable materials. Your insect hotel probably won’t last forever. Building one that can easily be recycled or returned to the earth at the end of it’s use is good planning. Just because straws and pvc pipe have the same shape as bamboo doesn’t mean that they’re good alternatives.

Consider your hotel’s location carefully. If you have a small space you might have limited choices. However if possible it’s best to place your hotel where it’s sheltered from some of the prevailing winds. If you like bees you may also want to look for a sunny location as they rely heavily on the sun for warmth.

Lastly don’t stop with just your insect hotel’s structure include some “landscaping” for it too. Insects are more likely to utilize your hotel if you add features around it they like. You can plant a flower mix around it, add a lot of mulch to that area of your garden, let the nearby grass grow tall, or add a place for them to access water.

Insect hotels are a great weekend project. They’re a quick and easy way to help your garden and the natural world. They’re also an excellent project to get kids involved with. Remember that you can make an insect hotel with anything you have on hand, there’s no right or wrong way to make one, and even if it comes out a little wonky it’s okay. The bugs don’t care if you measured everything perfectly!