Insects in the garden

July 27, 2:13 AMDetroit Organic Gardening ExaminerBill Canaday

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Many first time gardeners have never paid attention to any insects except for mosquitos when they were biting, bees when they were stinging and flies when they were landing on a picnic feast. This means that their gardening education includes a cram course on insects because it is only after they begin to focus on the plants that they begin to notice the variety of insects (and other wildlife) in their own backyards.

Unfortunately, often without waiting to identify the insects they see or determine their place in the garden, right away they leap to the defense of their beloved (and pricey) plants in dread that "The locusts are taking over and we are all going to starve to death!".

This is not the course of wisdom and results in much money being spent to apply much poison to much food in the quest to exterminate insects that were (ahem) actually beneficial.

Let's look at four ways that insects are actually welcome guests in a garden.

1. As pollinators.

This is the most widely known function that beneficial insects perform and it is indeed important. Bees are the best known of these, but flies, wasps, beetles, moths and butterflies each play a definite role. Non-insect pollination includes wind, birds, bats and gardeners trying to breed the next award winning tomato.

2. As decomposers.

While earthworms have an important part in this process, so do beetles, sow bugs (roly-polies) and a whole host of other characters, including mites, fungi and molds. Without their help, litter would just pile up higher and higher with no end in sight. With their help, nutrients trapped in organic residues (tree leaves, kitchen scraps and manures for instance) find their way back into the soil for re-use by the plants producing our food.

3. Predators and parasites.

These natural controls keep pest populations in touch with reality. In nearly every instance, the poisons that are used to kill the destructive insects also kill their predators. Predators and parasites MUST lag a little behind their prey or there would be nothing for them to eat or parasitize when they arrived. Thus, organic gardeners mentally steel themselves to accept minor amounts of damage to their gardens while awaiting the cavalry in the form of parasitic wasps, praying mantids, walking sticks, lady bugs and a whole army of other predators. By accepting this minor damage, the predator population and the pest population come into balance although, at first, the pests will seem to have the upper hand. Be assurred that it only takes a couple of years for the balance to be achieved.

4. Prey.

What else are the predators to eat? It is a healthy thing to permit some prey to survive long enough to become food for the predators. The alternative is to douse your garden in chemicals that kill and to accept that you, and your family, will also be eating those chemicals.

Although there are other arguments to be made in favor of organic gardening, not poisoning our food or our planet are strong ones. Your garden can withstand a little damage far better than you or your children can.

In "the D",

Bill

@BillinDetroit / Twitter