Don't Judge A Bug By It's Cover

I was heading out to harvest some swiss chard this afternoon, and saw this bug crawling around the garden:

This little guy appears pretty scary upon first look. Your instinct might be to squash now and ask questions later, but you'd be making a big mistake. This is actually the larval stage of a lady beetle (more commonly referred to as a lady bug). Insects go through a couple of different life stages before reaching their mature form that we are accustomed to recognizing. As in the case of lady beetles, many insect's larval and pupal stages look nothing like the adult, so it pays to become familiar with the life stages of the common insects in your garden, beneficial or pest. A lady beetle's life cycle is egg-larvae-pupae-adult.

Lady Beetle pupae

When you see the larval or adult stage of a lady beetle chances are that you have some aphids around. Aphids are soft bodied insects that hang out on the undersides of leaves, stems and flowers sucking out tasty plant juices and reproducing faster than rabbits. They'll cause the plant to look twisted and deformed. Larval and adult lady bugs consider aphids a delicacy and will gobble them up as fast as they can. If you let them, they will keep your aphid population at a tolerable level and you won't have to raise a finger.

I think that when it comes to pests in a vegetable garden it's important to realize that we don't have to eradicate every aphid, cabbage looper or cucumber beetle that we see. As long as we keep the populations down at a level where we can tolerate the damage we'll actually be encouraging lady beetles and other beneficials into our garden to dine creating an equilibrium between the predator/prey relationship of vegetable garden pests and beneficial insects.

To encourage beneficial insects in your garden try some of the following tips:

1. Have insect pests to serve as a food source

2. Grow plants whose flowers serve as a pollen and nectar source for beneficial bugs. Try parsley, dill, cilantro, fennel, sunflowers, coneflowers, yarrow, asters, and golden rod.

3. Mulch around plants to provide a home for beneficial ground beetles.

4. If the weather has been dry, provide a shallow bowl of water with stones in it so your beneficials can enjoy a drink but not drown.

5. Include trees, shrubs and perennials in your yard for other food sources and places to live.

Remember, pesticides (organic or otherwise) are used to kill living things. Unfortunately, pesticides can't tell the difference between garden enemies and beneficial insects... so try the tips above before you resort to spraying.