Beneficial Insects for the Tomato Garden
By Kira Hamman
A while back I misunderstood a question from a reader and thought he was wondering if the praying mantises on his tomatoes were going to hurt them.
Turns out he actually had aphids (poor guy), but this got me to thinking about beneficial insects and the important role they play in the tomato garden.
The praying mantis, for example, is indeed a beneficial insect. Far from hurting tomatoes, praying mantises love to feast on aphids and other bad bugs. They’re a little weird looking, it’s true, but they’re kind of fun to watch once you get used to them.
They catch bugs with their front legs, the prayerful position of which is how they got their name. Some species grow quite large, and they can change color from green to brown to camouflage themselves. They are not dangerous to humans. Leave them in your garden and be glad you don’t have aphids!
Other beneficial insects you may see in your tomato garden include:
• ladybugs, which also love to eat aphids,
• parasitic wasps, which prey on caterpillars and, in particular, the dreaded hornworms,
• ground beetles, which clean up pests in the soil, and
• spiders, which eat just about any kind of insect with a voracious appetite that outstrips all the other beneficials put together.
So remember – don’t spray with a broad-spectrum pesticide! You’ll kill all these good guys, too. Instead, identify your problem and try to solve it organically.
And remember, a bug-free garden is like a fat-free ice cream cone: never gonna happen.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Yep, saw the parasitic wasps for the first time this year enveloping 2 horn worms. Really gross, but luckily I knew they were good guys so I left them alone. Here’s a link to a post I did with a picture if you want to get grossed out. It’s a little fuzzy, but there’s a link to a better picture in the post. http://tinyurl.com/5cw7sm
August 24th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Right you are, Kira! Beneficial insects are our friends. I’ve never yet seen a tomato hornworm in my garden that wasn’t festooned with the cocoons of braconid wasps. All’s right with the world!