Attracting beneficial garden insects to your garden should be one of your new years resolutions especially if your keen on starting a fruit or vegetable garden this year. There are many insect "houses" out there available for purchase which are great at providing habitats for hibernating insects in winter but there is a great deal you can do during the growing season to attract beneficial garden insects into your garden, provide nectar rich plants and leave small piles of logs, debris at the back of the border, out of view.
Insects that are beneficial in eating those pests include:
- Ground beetles (leave them all apart from vine weevil)
- Ladybirds (excellent at eating large quantities of aphids)
- Lacewings (eat aphids and other pests)
- Hoverflies (eat aphids)
- Ichneumon flies (lay their eggs into the larvae that will turn into the cabbage white butterfly)
- Spiders
- Velvet mites (look like money spiders, eat other small insects)
By attracting beneficial insects into your garden you will help maintain a good balance thus reducing the need for nasty chemical controls (in my opinion should never be used around food crops, ever)
I will add more information on this topic as we go throughout the year.
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