You have to have adequate numbers of prey around to keep any predator happy.
No prey equals no predators.
A neighbour of ours bought a package of ladybugs once.
They all flew across the street to a less kempt lot.
The only predators I bring home are the ones I find in weird locales, like the preying mantis I found clinging to a bank downtown.
I don't know how to answer that. A wet yard? You mean watering? We watered as needed by the plants at the time.
Where I live now we have natural predators and see lady bugs and mantis all the time. Nonetheless I just saw some aphids on one of the tomato plants at sundown.
Find their eggs in a large plant filled veggie garden? You've got to be kidding!
When the larvae hatch, move
This sounds workable in a small garden but ours are/were large. The ladybugs my ex-husband bought didn't read the book. In two days we didn't see any left in the garden. I'm sure there were a few but we had to resort to a chemical spray.
Well, I have more geckos if the yard is kept moist in at least some areas. I have to save money on water but if some areas are never totally dry, it appears to attract and keep more beneficial critters such as geckos, toads and predatory insects.
Aphids on tomatoes? Really? I've never seen that. They seem to hang out mostly on the muscadine grapevines I use as a privacy fence, and they can have those.
Chemical spray will deter all kinds of predatory insects. While I do use sevin when I absolutely have to, (it biodegrades rapidly so seems to have minimal impact on my spiders, assassin bugs and ladybird beetles), I try to minimize that as much as possible.
Placing some birdhouse gourd nesting houses for house wrens, keeping some areas (for reptilian and amphibian predators) damp in the yard, rocky areas where they can hide, and jealously guarding my spiders does a lot for me. I'm also getting a healthy population of Anole lizards and fence lizards. :-)
I don't have a lot of extra geckos right now like I've had in the past, or I'd offer to mail you some. It's getting to be a bit hot now tho' to ship live lizards.
See if you can get your hands on some toad tadpoles. Raise them up in an outdoor temporary pond. I keep finding the cuties in unexpected places!
I'm still going to have to use BT tho' for brassicas and my passion vines, but that won't kill predatory insects. It only works on larval forms of pests.
Yes, they're aphids. There were a few ladybugs among them so left them alone. There aren't enough to do damage. And I also noticed more damage from the neighbors RoundUp spraying. The pepper plants have deformed centers and the small Okra are losing their oldest leaves. It's very discouraging. It looks like he sprayed around his garden patch which is only about 40' from ours. :( I hope he doesn't do the weedy patch even closer to our garden. We'll have nothing left healthy.
I have Sevin dust. We only use chemicals when the bugs are getting out of hand. We have many acres of woodland behind us so all kinds of critters come from back there, both good and bad.
We're too far north for anoles. We do have fence lizards and skinks, box turtles, frogs and toads and many kinds of snakes. I've yet to see any of them in the veggie garden. Our biggest problems are the squash vine borers and cabbage worms on the collards. I used that bacteria for them last summer but it was only partly effective. Most of the leaves were badly damaged before it stared to take effect. The plants were really set back last summer between the worms, the heat and the drought.
Because of the ponds we're loaded with toads and frogs and newts.
We use it also. :^)
Have you talked to him about it?
If you have a fence, placing a sheet of clear plastic over it might not hurt, to prevent spray drift.
I know that feeling. ;-) That is what keeps happening when I poison out the local rats. Some of my neighbors have problems with deer.
Can you hand-pick the worms? They are generally out mostly at dawn and dusk. I know it's a pain but...
One possibility would be to simply plant more than you can eat.
I envy you the newts. :-)
Wrens are death on bugs. :-) I think that's the only reason I've been able to garden at all! Little dudes are voracious when they are raising a nest of kids.
Plus they are cute!
I'm blessed with mockingbirds too.
IIRC, predator species need water sources.
I was thinking the SAME THING! I think plastic would work. The prevailing breeze comes from their property, to our west. There is a 4' field fence between us. I haven't said anything to him. I dread making enemies of neighbors. You never know how they'll take things.
We see deer all the time but they don't come near the houses because everyone has one or more dogs out here.
Too many plants to hand pick worms and there are always THOUSANDS of worms. You can turn over one leaf and see 20 or more of various sizes. I'm out of space in the gardens. I just have room for the 2 rows. These are large broad plants by July.
We have loads of house wrens here. They next everywhere. But again, I almost never see birds in the veggie garden either.
Yep! We have them here also. They sing just as it gets dark. Then, after dark, we hear the whippoorwills in the woods behind the house. :^)
I know what you mean...
I think my dogs keep them away as well.
Mm. I know what you mean. Unfortunately.
Huh. That's odd. Try placing water sources (makeshift bird baths can be made from upside down clay pots and clay saucers). Water sources are important to support predators.
I've planted marigolds in my garden to attract ladybugs, they are also supposed to kill a number of harmful pests on their own.
Snails and slugs, though, regard marigolds as a buffet and then they go off looking for the beer traps to get hammered in.
Beer traps work well don't they? :-)
Too well. I've fallen in many a beer trap. ;-)
Charlie
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