A healthy garden relies on many species to keep its ecosystem functioning optimally; any changes that disrupt this balance could disturb it.
For example, aphids may be considered pests; their nectar feeds lady beetles, which then prey upon other harmful insects like chinch bugs, weevils, and thrips.
Plant a Variety of Flowers
Consider how beneficial insects will benefit from planting specific flowers in your vegetable garden when selecting plants to include. Flowers with long bloom times and producing lots of pollen tend to draw in beneficial bugs. For instance, sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) is a hardy annual that keeps producing blooms throughout the season, delighting honeybees. It’s simple to grow from seed, making it suitable for front of flower beds and perennial beds.
Beneficial insects require food sources in your garden for feeding purposes, so make sure that a variety of flowers provide both nectar and pollen production—pollen-producing daisies, marigolds, and chrysanthemums make good candidates. Long-blooming herbs like parsley, fennel, and cilantro also provide food sources. Herbs make great additions to any vegetable patch while serving as food sources for beneficial insects!
Planting the correct combination of plants will create an ecosystem that naturally controls pests. For instance, planting marigolds alongside tomato plants will attract ladybugs, who feed on harmful aphids that threaten these precious vegetables—protecting both!
Attracting beneficial insects to the garden takes some effort and persistence but is ultimately worth the time spent doing so in terms of naturally fighting vegetable garden insect pests. By creating a habitat full of different plants and eliminating any use of pesticides from your garden space, finding combinations that attract beneficial insects should become much more straightforward.
As part of your aim to establish a healthy, well-balanced ecosystem, be wary of overdoing it with plants meant to attract good bugs. Doing too much of any one type may encourage too many of the nasty bugs into your environment – which could cause more issues than it solves as these nasty bugs compete for essential resources such as water and nutrients with good bugs that need them both for survival. Spraying chemicals often kills or disturbs their balance as well as endangering good ones as a whole.
Provide Shelter
Attracting beneficial insects requires providing them with their ideal habitat. Integrating various flower types that bloom throughout the season will provide pollen and nectar sources. Also, planting different flower types makes it easier for insects to locate food sources – options such as Ajuga, Blazing Star, Caraway, Cilantro Dill, Fennel, etc. make excellent additions, as do daisies, lupines, Nasturtiums, Parsley, Wild Yarrow, Queen Annes Lace are all beautiful options to attract beneficial insects.
Establishing the ideal environment in your garden can also encourage predatory insects and egg-laying parasitoid insects to establish themselves there. Ladybugs, natural predators of aphids, can easily control them for you. Keeping aphid populations under control will keep your yard healthier while decreasing chemical pesticide usage.
Implementing ground cover plants into your garden design and leaving areas of it unmanicured are great ways to provide shelter for beneficial insects. For example, you could place logs or rock piles there or create insect hotels using organic materials like twigs and branches. Limiting chemical pesticide usage in your garden is crucial, as their chemicals could harm both harmful and beneficial bugs.
Beneficial insects rely heavily on water to stay alive, and adding a small water dish to the garden will enable them to get what they need to stay hydrated. Furthermore, leaving areas filled with natural debris, grass clippings, or garden waste as sources of moisture for beneficial insects feeding and laying their eggs may also help.
Achieving success at attracting beneficial insects to the garden requires creating an ecological balance that keeps pests at bay. By including various flowers, providing shelter, providing constant water supplies, and not over-stimulating the plants with too much nitrogen, you can help ensure beneficial insects come to your garden in abundance. This will naturally control pest populations while supporting healthy plants and abundant biodiversity.
Provide Water
If you want your garden to be harmonious rather than pest-driven chaos, ensure that beneficial insects have all the necessary resources. They will naturally control pests while supporting plant growth if given enough food, shelter, and water.
Beneficial insects need pollen and nectar for survival, so they’re drawn to flowers that produce these plant juices. Look for flowering plants with flat umbels of tiny flowers like Queen Anne’s lace or daisies or those with loose spikes of tube-shaped blooms like mint and yarrow. Vegetables also make excellent choices because their large leaves and stems offer cover from predators, plus some varieties have even been engineered specifically to produce high levels of pollen and nectar-yiving nutrients.
Beneficial insects feed on the larvae of more destructive insect pests. A diversity of perennial flowers, shrubs, and turfgrass will attract carnivorous, herbivorous, or pollinating larvae best suited to your specific growing conditions. For instance, if your broccoli garden has aphids, then lady beetles and lacewings drawn to cabbage flowers will visit to feast upon these destructive bugs!
Beneficial insects feed on harmful fungi and organisms, so include some in your planting mix. Many are insectivores, but some also act as predators, helping control populations of harmful fungi or creatures that might otherwise threaten plant health.
When creating a garden to attract beneficial insects, the key takeaway should be patience as the insects settle into their new environment and start caring for the problem. At first, your garden might suffer as these beneficial bugs look for food sources to feed on. However, with enough patience, they’ll eventually settle in and solve your issues!
Organic pest control means choosing natural methods of protection and control whenever possible, such as using botanical insecticides such as neem, pyrethrins, or rotenone. These insecticides have much shorter residual activity periods and won’t harm beneficial insects.
Offer a Place to Hide
Gardeners may be familiar with attracting pollinators to their gardens by planting flowers that attract pollinators. Still, other beneficial insects, including predatory and parasitoid insect species, are just as valuable in vegetable gardens. These natural enemies of crop pests eat them directly or lay eggs on them, acting as a biocontrol to control them.
Habitat creation for beneficial insects is crucial to their attraction, and many herb plants provide food sources that attract both adult and larval forms of beneficial bugs such as ladybugs – these larval forms will eat aphids as well as many beetle and caterpillar pests! For instance, culinary herbs like cilantro, dill, lemon balm parsley, and fennel attract these beneficial bugs, which consume pests such as aphids, beetles, and caterpillars!
Herbs’ flowers provide easy access to nectar chambers that serve as food sources for adult insects. Other plants that attract these beneficial insects’ larval stages are arugula, sage, oregano, thyme, and yarrow; common garden weeds like dandelions, clover, and yellow buttercup are also attractive to their larvae.
Planting flowering plants that attract beneficial insects is the ideal way to attract these predators. This ensures there will always be food available when insects need it. Some species also provide shelter, water, and other conditions beneficial for developing into adults.
Gardeners can also attract beneficial insects by employing companion planting, mulching with wood chips and compost, and other tried-and-tested gardening practices. Companion planting involves growing plants that thrive together, reducing weed competition, and enriching the soil with essential nutrients.
Jessica cautions that while it may be tempting to purchase and release beneficial insects such as lacewings or multicolored Asian lady beetles for biocontrol purposes, doing so could backfire. While such insects can provide pest management in enclosed environments like greenhouses and barns, more than their numbers will be needed to manage home gardens with thousands of insects. For example, even releasing 4,000 larval lacewings into a suburban backyard garden won’t likely sustain their population long-term; furthermore, wild-collected insects may carry diseases that will spread further and possibly spread throughout their new surroundings.