Harmful Insects Ruining Your Vegetable Garden? Attracting More Might Be The Solution

When it comes to your vegetable garden, it's inevitable that insects will visit, and maybe even try and move in and make a new home. Some of these are pests, but many are actually welcome guests and can help your garden thrive. The fact is, out of the thousands of insects that will visit your backyard, a very small percentage of them are harmful, and knowing which ones to try to attract versus which ones to actively repel (along with knowing hacks for how to remove those pests) is a critical part of any successful vegetable garden.

Some insects are known pests and will absolutely do damage to your garden if left unchecked. The most notorious ones include aphids, cutworms, caterpillars, and slugs. Aphids in particular are known for attacking a wide range of plants. They travel with their pesky sidekicks, ants, who stand watch over aphid colonies, fighting off insects that may actually be helpful to your plants. (And while you can try to use coffee grounds to control ants, it's not a foolproof hack.) 

Insects that help your garden thrive are called beneficials, and they fall into three categories: pollinators, predators, and parasitizers. Pollinators include butterflies, bees, and moths and are essential for keeping flowers alive. Predators, such as ladybugs and spiders, eat harmful pests, while parasitizers such as parasitic wasps, lay eggs on their prey. When the eggs hatch, the larvae feeds on the host pest. If you can learn how to attract more beneficials to your garden, then you can establish natural pest control without having to overuse pesticides that are toxic to bees and other types of pollinators.

So what is the best way to attract beneficials to your yard? The good news is that most of these insects are already hanging out in gardens. The most important thing to do to keep them around is provide a hospitable home. That is, keep food and water sources available for them. For instance, set out a shallow bowl of water and fill it with little rocks they can land on to drink. For food, try including a range of flowers with pollen and nectar they can eat in lieu of pests. 

Another great way to attract helpful insects is to diversify your garden with all types of shrubs, grasses, and even rock features to give them a good hiding spot from predators. A good rule of thumb is the more variety in plants, the more variety in visitors. Early blooming plants will attract beneficials to your garden early on in the season and will pre-emptively stop pests from getting too comfortable. Once your garden is in full swing, the best flowers for attracting good insects like soldier beetles are plants with compound blossoms, such as marigolds (which help keep tomato plants pest-free), yarrow, and Queen Anne's lace. With these considerations in mind, your vegetable garden should be well-protected and able to fill your kitchen with its bounty.