Garden Bugs - How to Tell the "10 Most Wanted" Good Guys From the "Dirty Dozen"
With gardening come routine jobs that are fun at first, but they might get a bit boring with time.
Your challenge as head gardener is to keep children's interest level high with a combination of education, games and contests.
It all starts with Knowing Your Bugs.
There are "Good Bugs" - the 10 Most Wanted".
These are the guys you want to encourage to hang out in the family garden.
Then there are the not-so-good-guys - actually the "10 Most Wanted".
These bugs are wanted in the Wild, Wild West way - dead or alive.
These guys eat or suck the juices out of your plants.
What's that you say? No such thing as a good insect? The only good insect is a dead one? Shame on you.
These good guys eat the garden's bad guys.
Teach your kids how to recognize the good bugs from the bad.
Here's a primer: The Top 10 Most Wanted - The Good Garden Guys 1 Earthworms: They aerate the soil by tunneling, and their excrement fertilizes it.
I call them "poopers".
2 Pillbugs: poopers 3 Dung beetles: poopers (The name says it all!) 4 Bumble bees: pollinate plants 5 Praying mantises: eat bad pests 6 Lacewings: eat aphids 7 Ladybugs: eat aphids and other pests 8 Braconid wasps: eat hornworms 9 Butterflies: pollinate plants 10 Wasps: pollinate plants.
The Dirty Dozen: The Bad Garden Bugs If you're handpicking, you have two options: pick and crush (not for the faint of heart), or pick and toss into a jar half full of water and a dash of liquid soap.
1 Aphids (Spray off with water) 2 Corn earworms (handpick) 3 Tomato hornworms (handpick) 4 Squash vine borers (insert wire in hole in stem and skewer) 5 Cucumber beetles (handpick) 6 Cutworms (use cutworm collars - 2-inch sections of toilet-paper or paper towel rolls pushed into the ground around stems of transplants) 7 Cabbage loopers (handpick) 8 Mealybugs (spray off with water or swab off with alcohol) 9 Spider mites (spray off with water) 10 Snails and slugs (handpick, crush or set out beer traps) 11 Earwigs (trap and crush) 12 Whiteflies (spray off with water or set out yellow sticky traps).
Your challenge as head gardener is to keep children's interest level high with a combination of education, games and contests.
It all starts with Knowing Your Bugs.
There are "Good Bugs" - the 10 Most Wanted".
These are the guys you want to encourage to hang out in the family garden.
Then there are the not-so-good-guys - actually the "10 Most Wanted".
These bugs are wanted in the Wild, Wild West way - dead or alive.
These guys eat or suck the juices out of your plants.
What's that you say? No such thing as a good insect? The only good insect is a dead one? Shame on you.
These good guys eat the garden's bad guys.
Teach your kids how to recognize the good bugs from the bad.
Here's a primer: The Top 10 Most Wanted - The Good Garden Guys 1 Earthworms: They aerate the soil by tunneling, and their excrement fertilizes it.
I call them "poopers".
2 Pillbugs: poopers 3 Dung beetles: poopers (The name says it all!) 4 Bumble bees: pollinate plants 5 Praying mantises: eat bad pests 6 Lacewings: eat aphids 7 Ladybugs: eat aphids and other pests 8 Braconid wasps: eat hornworms 9 Butterflies: pollinate plants 10 Wasps: pollinate plants.
The Dirty Dozen: The Bad Garden Bugs If you're handpicking, you have two options: pick and crush (not for the faint of heart), or pick and toss into a jar half full of water and a dash of liquid soap.
1 Aphids (Spray off with water) 2 Corn earworms (handpick) 3 Tomato hornworms (handpick) 4 Squash vine borers (insert wire in hole in stem and skewer) 5 Cucumber beetles (handpick) 6 Cutworms (use cutworm collars - 2-inch sections of toilet-paper or paper towel rolls pushed into the ground around stems of transplants) 7 Cabbage loopers (handpick) 8 Mealybugs (spray off with water or swab off with alcohol) 9 Spider mites (spray off with water) 10 Snails and slugs (handpick, crush or set out beer traps) 11 Earwigs (trap and crush) 12 Whiteflies (spray off with water or set out yellow sticky traps).
