Garden Pests and Diseases: Friend or Foe?, 0 by Night_Bloom

Night_Bloom wrote:
downscale babe - Welcome. Yes, birds will definitely eat the bad grubs when they can get a hold of them. When I rototill my garden the birds can't wait for me to go do something else in the yard so that they can come down and grab up all the grubs they can get their beaks on. If I come across one while I'm planting, I throw it out somewhere conspicuous - like on the walkway - so the birds can come down and get them. If I were an early riser, I might be able to tell you if they were efficient at hunting them on their own - and I assume they are, because at least one species comes to the surface (green June beetles), but alas I don't call myself Night Bloom for nothing - hee.


paani - Unfortunately at present I don't have a cucmber beetle photo - they are a "wet-looking" light green with black spots and generally not as round shaped as lady beetles. It's hard to give an all encompasing lady beetle description though, because there are so many different species... some are red with black spots that can vary from two to 12 or more, others have no spots at all, others even are black with red spots. If I get a cucumber beetle this year, I'll be sure to photograph it and post it here.

As for your aphids, I am sorry to hear that yours are so persistent. if it appears that they start doing damage - I can't be sure about the staying put, though many are fairly picky about what kind of plants they eat - I suggest the imidicloprid (in stuff such as Bayer Advanced - check for imidicloprid as the active ingredient). It will work systemically, so will only get the critters that dare to nibble or suck on your plants, but it won't get the caterpillars.


TamaraFaye - hello and welcome. I'll see what I can do. I'll have to provide a link (give me a day or two to see if I can find some good images), because I don't have pictures of a lady beetle pupae, though I have seen them. They actually look a lot like the larvae, except "squished up" so that they appear hunched and they are immobile. As far as I know, Colorado potato beetles pupate in the ground, not on the plants. I don't have a picture of the larva, but I'll try to find a link to that too.

I guess basically if it is immobile on the plant, it is probably a lady beetle pupae. The lady beetle larvae should look imilar to my picture. I'll try to get a picture of a Colorado potato beetle larva.


Now for another picture of a benficial insect. This one is actually familiar, but most people probably don't know that it is a predator on all kinds of insects, so here I provide picture evidence of one of these gals in action. Here is a yellow jacket happily tearing apart an insect - I believe it was a caterpillar in this case, but by the time the yellow jacket is done, it's hard to tell. They yellow jacket might eat a little. The rest it will carry back to the nest to feed the young.

This message was edited May 10, 2005 6:41 AM