Some Thoughts about Integrated Pest Management

With all the posts about "good" and "bad" bugs, I really wanted to mention something. Just as plant roots suffer without healthy bacteria (those of you with clorinated pools near your garden know what I am talking about) I believe that my garden suffers without some amount of insect life. Specifically, what I am referring to is the lowly aphid.

 

 

 

 

 

Though a gardener may prefer to have no aphids at all, I believe that having a mild number of aphids on my plants is really good. Why? Because aphids are the foundation insect for many of the beneficial insects I appreciate in my garden. Ladybugs, lace wings, hoverflies, parasitic wasps, other wasps, assassin bugs, mantids, spiders, etc.

 

 

Syrphid Fly larvae eat aphids

 

 

 

 

Why do I love these beneficial insects so much? Because they do the majority of the work to take care of pest problems before they get out of control. Though some of these predatory insects only eat aphids, the majority of them consume other insect pests as well. They reduce the amount of work I have to do to maintain my garden and are thus a net positive.

 

 

Ladybird beetle larvae love aphids too

 

 

 

 

 

While I do work to reduce aphid populations before they really damage any one plant, I believe that using an Integrated Pest Management approach helps to keep garden pests in perspective. Instead of fighting my gardening problems, I much prefer to let nature to take care of some of my pests (excluding cucumber beetles) before I really need to.