Hooray for the Assassin Bugs! - Update

I wanted to post an update to my original post on predatory insects. I have found a new a new bug. I have seen quite a few of these bugs out in the garden, but they don't seem to be causing any damage. So...I looked them up in my books.
I had a vague idea that it might be a stink bug, which I know is not good for the garden. One of my books, The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control, has a great section helping to tell bugs apart that are very similar. Because of the markings on the bug, and the lack of damage on the plants, I have come to the conclusion that this is a Spined Soldier Bug that eats caterpillars and grubs. So each time I see one, I thank them for residing in my garden.

Our assassin bug population is doing very well. There are hundreds, it seems, in our okra patch. I greet them everyday when I see them. We still have a few squash bugs roaming around, but not very many.


A friend asked me yesterday what Daddy Longlegs eat because she has a bunch of them by her porch in her flower bed. Well, I didn't know so I went to the same book at it said they are known as Harvestmen. They are active at night and eat small insect pests. I had no idea. She also told me she

has a bunch of aphids on her squash so I recommended she go out in the morning and collect some of the Daddy Longlegs and dump them on her squash plants to see if they will eat the aphids. She thought that was a great idea, so we will see how it works.

So before you smash that next bug, find out if they are friend or foe. By the way, those good sized brown spiders that you find in the garden all the time? They are wolf spiders and are another one of your friends. Their diet includes things like flies, mosquitoes, crickets and beetle larvae. There is a whole world of predatory insects that will help us with our gardening if we will just let them.

We are blessed with challenges and solutions in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes we just have to take the time to look closely to find the answers we are searching for.

Until next time - Fern

Hooray for the Assassin Bugs!

Last summer I made one of the most important discoveries of gardening ever! At least for me. Assassin bugs. You see, we don't use chemicals of any kind in our garden and some years we are just overrun with bugs chomping, chomping and chomping.
Well, last year this really creepy bug came along - and there were lots of them. At first, I squished them. Then I decided I needed to figure out what they were. I had never heard of an assassin bug. 
I read what I could find in my gardening books, then I did an internet search with images. Cute, huh? I found out they are very beneficial insects, so I quit squishing them. And after a while, I decided they weren't so creepy after all.

For some reason these bugs liked to congregate on a couple of my pepper plants. Across the garden I had a squash plant that was just covered in squash bugs so I thought I would do an experiment. I went out one morning and gathered up about 20 assassin bugs in a jar (I wore gloves, of course!) and dumped them out on the squash plant. I had no idea whether or not it would work, but a few days later, the squash bugs were almost entirely gone.

What a great discovery! Well, this spring, I have been watching for their return. A friend saw a weird little bug on my porch last week that I thought might be an immature or nymph assassin bug so I did another internet search that confirmed that it was. But I still don't have a lot of confidence in my knowledge and ability to identify some insects.

I know the squash bugs are here because I have seen a few and this morning I began finding their eggs on my squash plants. (See the gloves? I don't like to touch bugs!)

So I went on a more detailed search through the garden and found and squished about 20 squash bugs. I picked off the leaves that had the eggs on them and fed them to the chickens. 

And then, in the midst of my search, there was that weird little bug again. And guess what? He was eating a worm! Yahoo! The assassin bugs are back!



 
It's funny the things we get excited about. I never thought I would be so happy to see such a creepy little bug!

Until next time - Fern