My OG Blog

Did you know that you can purchase lady bugs to release in your organic garden? Have you tried only to have them all fly away? Here’s a quick organic gardening tip that may help keep this desirable beneficial insect around after you release it.

Thoroughly wet the area you plan to release the lady bugs into. Plan to release them in the evening and release some of them under a damp straw mulch. You may also consider spreading a sponge with some commercially made beneficial insect food (should be able to buy it where you purchased the lady bugs). These added steps may help keep your lady bugs form flying away!

To be truly successful organic gardening it is important to incorporate methods to attract beneficial insects and animals to your garden. The focus of this article is on the beneficial soldier beetle. Soldier beetles are great to have around since both the adult and the larvae are usually predators. They feed on many kinds of insects including: cucumber beetles, grasshopper eggs, caterpillars, root maggots, rootworm larvae and most soft bodied insects.

The soldier beetle resembles a firefly (they don’t glow) with its elongated body and long antennae, they are usually a brownish yellow or tan. The Pennsylvania leatherwing has a long dark spot located at the base of each wing the head and the area behind the head also have black spots. The downy leather wing is blueish gray with a fuzzy or hairy appearance, hence the name.  Adult soldier beetles range from 1/3 to 1/2 an inch in length.

You can find soldier beetles in milkweed, goldenrod, hydrangea, catnip and many other flowers will attract soldier beetles. The pupae need permanent perennial plantings where they will not be disturbed.  The Pennsylvania leatherwing is found only east of the Mississippi but many other species are found throughout the North America.

On a special note if you have had problems with cucumber beetles in the past you may want to make an extra effort to attract soldier beetles to garden. Try planting catnip or using a hydrangea or two in a border around the garden, you may also consider allowing some goldenrod or milkweed to spring up amongst your cucumbers.

In my last post I wrote about Lady Bugs I think they are probably the best known beneficial insect in an organic garden. But if you are like me when I was first getting started I knew about Lady Bugs and a few other beneficial insects but in all honesty was not aware of very many or what makes them beneficial. So I hope the next few posts will help you discover which insects are beneficial how to identify them and how to attract them and how to keep them in your organic garden.

This articles subject is the rove beetle. The rove beetle is gold and brown with short antennae and they have pinching jaws which they use to seize their prey. They move very quickly and hold the tip of their abdomen high above the ground. The rove beetle is noted for its shiny golden hairs over the abdominal tip. An adult rove beetle are from 1/10 to 1 inch in length.

Rove beetles like to hang out in dark and damp places. In compost piles, under leaves, rocks, old boards or logs. So to help insure you have rove beetles residing in your garden be sure to provide it with plenty of habitat. Using heavy layers of mulch and planting dense ground covers are excellent ways to help insure they have a great hang out. Use your imagination and make a planting using larger rocks as decoration. Who says a vegetable garden can’t be imaginative and attractive! Use old boards between raised bed rows, cover with mulch and you will create covered bridges for them to go from one happy hunting ground to another.

So now that you have a better idea of what they look like, where they like to live and what you can do to help insure they will find a home in your organic garden you might be wondering why you should want them in your garden. Rove beetles are active scavengers and will feed on whatever insect larvae or soft bodied insect they can find. They are especially good for controlling root maggots and other fly maggots. In a study of one species of rove beetles they consumed over 80% of the cabbage maggots in the test plot area.

It is important to note that while they are a desirable insect to have in your organic garden they really can pack a nasty pinch with their rather wicked looking jaws and some species can spray a nasty smelling liquid in the direction their tail is pointing. So if you spot them in your garden enjoy the fact that they are there but don’t get too close!

If you are new to organic gardening you might be wondering why lady bugs are such a welcome sight. Lady bugs also known as lady beetles and ladybird beetles are general predators of many harmful insects in your garden. They will prey on aphids, thrips, mites, mealybugs, scale and many other harmful insects. They also eat the larvae or eggs of many garden pests. Depending on the species, there are over 450 different species  in North America, they will eat as many as 50 to hundreds of aphids per day, their larvae will often eat even more!

Lady bugs are easily recognized by their oval dome shaped body, they will  come in a variety of colors from red, orange, yellow or beige and many have black spots. The larvae are dark with orange or yellow marks and have six legs. They are sometimes called alligators because they look like miniature alligators. The pupae are usually dark with orange marks.

Attracting beneficial insects is an important aspect of organic gardening. These wonderful little creatures do the job of of pesticides without all of the harmful chemicals which is exactly what we are trying to achieve! To help insure you have ladybugs and other beneficial insects it is important to intermingle or plant borders of plants that attract these helpful friends.

Some of the herbs ladybugs are attracted by are: Angelica, Anise, Dill and Fennel.

Perennials: Hardy Marguerite, all types of daisies, goldenrod, scented geraniums and Yarrows

Annuals: Bachelor Buttons, Gazania, Zinnias and Dwarf Morning Glories

Some of the common weeds and wildflowers which attract ladybugs are: Dandelions, Oxeye Daisy and Queen-Anne’s-lace.

You will also find them on alfalfa which is a great cover crop!

An important note to keep in mind is if you use pest controls even organic sprays and soaps you will also harm the beneficials in your garden. Please remember that while we consider aphids a pest ladybugs see them as lunch! If you completely eliminate them the ladybugs will go somewhere else to find lunch. So while you want to control the number of pests in your organic garden to minimize the damage they do, you need some of them around to create balance. If you eliminate all of the pests away many of the beneficials will leave as well. So don’t be to quick to pick up an organic pesticide I would only use them if they are clearly getting out of control and then only with great caution. Balance is the key! If you can achieve a balance of nature in your organic garden you will have great success!

Cover crops, sometimes called green manure or living mulch, are one of the best ways to improve the soil in your organic garden and they are also one of the most under utilized methods of improvement. Alfalfa is a great cover crop since it is a perennial legume it will make your soil more nutrient rich. It also has very deep tap roots and will improve soil drainage while it is bringing up the nutrients from deep in the ground. Alfalfa is also a favorite of many beneficial insects who are attracted to its pretty purple flowers.

Alfalfa is a great cover crop to plant in an area for future gardening, or in areas where you want to give a rest. It is best to plant it in spring or late summer and you should plan to let it grow for a year or more. When it is done flowering (before it has gone to seed) I would suggest mowing it. The high nitrogen content of green alfalfa will heat up your compost and cutting it will also encourage more growth (deeper roots).  You can also work the clippings directly into the soil of the active areas of your garden, or use it for a mulch.

Roses love alfalfa so mix some of the cuttings into the soil around your roses or use it to mulch around the base. Another helpful tip is to let some of it dry really well in the sun, chop it up very fine  and store it in a cloth bags large enough to hold a couple of ounces of dried alfalfa. Later when your garden needs an added boost of energy just throw a bag of alfalfa into a five gallon bucket of fresh clean water let it sit in the sun for a couple of days and waa laa you have alfalfa sun tea a refreshing drink your plants will love!

The fourth fundamental of organic gardening is planting cover crops.  Cover crops have more benefits than just just covering the soil. They can be used in several ways: to cover soil in unused parts of the garden, to protect beds over winter, to a help block weeds under fruit and vegetable plants (living mulch),  and to help block the growth of weeds in new beds. Cover crops will improve drainage , help prevent erosion, attract beneficial animals and insects, when you mow or cut a cover crop it is like an instant supply of mulch for other parts of the garden! Cover crops preserve nutrients which otherwise may leach out of the soil.

Stay tuned I will be starting a new section of posts on the different types of cover crops highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each!

In the two previous post we talked about the first fundamental collect, collect, collect! The second fundamental of organic gardening is to compost some of what you collected. I mention in that post that some of the materials you collect should be composted right away because they start to decompose so quickly. Materials like kitchen scraps and grass clippings start to decompose quickly and do not store well while items like diseased or pest infected plants should be thrown into the compost pile as soon as possible to prevent the spread of either the pests or the disease along with weeds which have gone to seed since the heat of the compost pile will help to kill pests, disease and weed seeds.

So you might be asking, if I am not saving all this stuff to compost what else should I do with all of these materials I have collected? If the material is one that will store well like pine needles, straw, leaves, saw dust, shredded paper, etc. then it will also make great mulch! Grass clippings are also a great mulch if you use it right away so if you don’t want to or don’t need to compost your grass clippings then use it to mulch. Mulching is an extremely important aspect of organic gardening. It helps the soil retain moisture, helps control weeds and provides shelter for beneficial insects! So it reduces the amount of time spent watering and weeding, conserves on water and supports the beneficial population in your garden meaning you can spend less time working and more time enjoying your organic vegetable garden! An added benefit of using organic matter to mulch with is that as it is acting as a mulch it is also beginning to decompose and when you go to plant in that area  again you simply work the mulch into the soil where it will finish composting and enrich your soil!

In my last article we discussed the first fundamental of organic gardening: collect, collect, collect. The next two fundamentals are about what you do with all of this organic material you’ve collected. As was stated before the single most important ingredient in a successful organic garden is the soil and the best fertilizer for an organic garden is compost.

If you are lucky enough to be starting your garden with great soil compost will keep it rich and healthy. If you’re not so lucky, compost will build any type of soil into great soil. Compost improves sandy soil by adding nutrients and improving water retention. Compost will add nutrients and improve texture and drainage in heavy clays. No matter what soil type you have you can improve it by adding compost.

So now that you have collected all these great organic materials it’s time to start composting some of them. Some of the materials you will collect should be put into an active compost pile immediately. Kitchen scraps you don’t have room to freeze, weeds that have gone to seed, sick or diseased plants, fresh grass clippings (though there is another use for these), garden debris which may harbor harmful insects or their larvae and hay.

There are many different methods of composting find the ones that work for you. I personally have two or three methods going at the same time. Check out some of my other articles on composting to discover what works for you.

The most important factor for any garden to be successful is the soil. If you have great soil already you will want to keep it that way and if your soil is not so great you will need to improve it. There are four fundamental things you can do to improve the soil in your organic garden.  This will be a short series of articles which will allow me to discuss each of the fundamentals in more detail.

The basis for all of the fundamentals is ORGANIC MATTER. You can never have too much! Fundamental #1: collect, collect, collect. Find a place to keep all of the materials you collect, a corner of your garage, in your garden and old shed whatever works for your situation. Keep in mind some of the materials you collect will need to be used right away since they will turn sour if they are stored.

Some examples of organic matter to collect are:

Newspapers

Leaves

Pine Needles

Grass Clippings

Kitchen Scraps

The grass clippings are an example of material that should be used right away. Kitchen scraps are another, unless you have enough freezer space where you can freeze them in old milk cartons and save them for later use. Freezing kitchen scraps is actually a great way to save organic matter since the process of freezing and then thawing helps break the matter down more quickly. Things like the newspaper, leaves, pine needles, etc. can be stored indefinitely in a dry environment.

Don’t have enough organic matter around the house? Ask friends and family to save their old newspapers, leaves and grass clippings for you. There are almost always bags of leaves, and better yet pine needles, in the spring and fall sitting on the curbs waiting to be picked up by the garbage truck. Have a coffee pot at work? Bring a plastic pail to work and ask your co-workers to put the grounds in it.

Be resourceful there are hundreds of resources out there for you to collect all of the organic material you need! Your organic garden will love you for it and as an added bonus you will be helping reduce the waste that gets into your local landfill helping to create a greener, healthier planet!

In my last post I wrote about benefits of grouping plants into families in your organic garden. This post is about plant friends. A plant friend is a plant that doesn’t belong to the family of plants but still provides some kind of benefit to the family. The friend may attract beneficial insects, or it may attract pests away from the family, it may provide shade or shelter, they may block weeds, or feed the soil. Whatever role they take on it is always good to have friends!

A classic example of planting crop friends together comes from Native Americans. They would plant corn, pole beans and squash together. The dense growth and prickly nature of squash growing amongst the corn stocks helps to keep animal invaders out and the squash has the benefit of open ground to grow on. The corn provides the pole beans with a natural trellis while the beans help to fix nitrogen in soil for the corn.

The most important plant friends are the ones who attract beneficial insects. To name just a few: dill attracts lady bugs, wasps, spiders, hoverflies and bees; Bachelor buttons provide nectar for many beneficial insects; Gazania is popular with lady bugs and spined soldier bugs; Marigolds attract hoverflies and parasitic wasps. I will be going into further detail on this in future posts.

So if we put plant families with plant friends, beneficial insects and beneficial wildlife what do we get? A garden neighborhood! No chemicals needed or allowed!