imafan26
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Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Garden Patrol : what is in your garden?

I seem to have people coming to me every day at work looking for the magic bullet that will kill all the "bugs on their tomatoes". I try to stay out of that aisle unless I really have to be there or there are only a couple of people there. Covid 19 has sparked a renewed interest in gardening, but a lot of the new gardeners and some old ones come every day looking for the panacea that will take care of all of their garden problems.

The best panacea I know of for the garden is to create an ecosystem not just a few small pots on a lanai or a small over planted plot.

A balanced ecosystem is the best way for everything to grow better. (unfortunately, weeds grow better too) and healthier.

A balanced ecosystem provides habitat and food for beneficial insects and predators. Trees, shrubs, flowering nectar plants, as well as water basins in summer, stacks of rocks, hollow logs or the stand in (4 inch PVC pipes), Repurposed broken pottery, bee, butterfly and bat houses, some birds houses, toad abodes, even some bare ground invites nature in.

Treat the living soil well. Add organic matter in the form of compost and mulching plants preserves moisture and nourishes the soil web, teeming with millions of tiny bacteria, fungi, worms, and other tiny critters, which in turns feeds the soil.

Plants should be adapted to the location and get along with its neighbors. All plants need a good well drained soil that is able to retain some moisture and nutrients. Plants need to be placed far enough from each other and structures like fences and walls so they get good air circulation, access to light, and enough root space to grow.

You have to learn sometimes to accept the good with the bad. The good bugs will go away if they have nothing to eat.

Birds: Some people like birds in the garden for enjoyment and to watch them. They do have a benefit. Mynahs and cattle egrets are welcome in my garden. They eat the larger insects in my garden like grass hoppers, and grubs. The cattle egret also likes anoles. Bulbuls, Java rice birds, doves, cardinals, mejiro, and finches are mostly seed and fruit eaters. They are not native and they do cause issues eating fruits and seeds especially hot peppers, papaya, strawberries, lychee, mango, and tomatoes. Some things need to be picked at first blush or protected by barriers. Birds don't scare easily. CD's, plastic owls don't fool them for long.

Lizards: The most visible part of my garden patrol are the reptiles. I have anoles, a few geckos, and skinks. I have at least 20 anoles in the back yard and about the same in the front yard. Most of the skinks are also in the front yard. They eat everything from mosquitoes, flies, moths, butterflies, caterpillars, beetles, and they are always there waiting to pounce on earthworms.
I have house geckos. They do eat some ants and roaches, but mostly my cat eats them.

Cats: Disclaimer: I have indoor cats, for the most part they don't even want to go outside. I do have strays coming through my yard. The indoor cats keep the mice and rats outside. The outside cats kill any mouse they can catch. I am usually left with clean up. I don't have a lot of issues with cats messing in the garden. Dense planting helps with that.

Bees/ butterflies/ parasitoids: I have a lot of nectar and flowering plants. My bee population is almost back to the pre 2011 level before varoa mites became and issue. There is a desert honeysuckle that is growing rampant and invading my yard from the neighbor and that attracts bees birds, and butterflies. I don't plant to attract butterflies since I have cabbages. The same nectar and flowering plants will also attract beneficial insects. Marigolds, alyssum, dill, sunflower, fennel, cuphea, Cuban oregano, zinnias, cosmos, nasturtiums, and blooms from vegetables like cabbage, cilantro, dill, fennel, and carrots also attract beneficial insects. Carpenter bees pollinate most of the garden vegetables. Artificial hives work for them. Bees like to pollinate weeds and small shallow flowers. I grow mostly parthenocarpic squash and cucumbers so pollination is not required or desired. Most bees here are from managed hives and are Carolinian bees. They are docile bees and they are used to me so as long as I don't get too close to them, they don't mind sharing the garden. Butterflies and most of the caterpillars are eaten by the anoles. I have to catch any white cabbage butterflies that find my garden. I have not had aphids only once on a single plant in the last three years. I got rid of that plant.

I do have thrips, occasionally spider mites in summer, hibiscus erineum mites, peach scale, scale on the bay leaves, white flies (cycles every two years) and snails. For these I do intervene when the damage is above tolerance.

Erineum mites affect one of my hybrid hibiscus plants. It is a legacy plant so I am not willing to get rid of it and so I do use a systemic to keep the plant from having severe damage. I have other hibiscus that the erineum mites don't bother.

White flies are handled with jets of water under the leaves. White flies like peppers, hibiscus, weeds, gardenia and a lot of other plants. I just make it part of my routine when I water to blast under the leaves of these plants and to check the leaves regularly. I do plant corn to attract the purple ladybugs and flowers in my yard attract the parasitic wasps. The ladybugs and parasitic wasps have a predator prey cycle and that is why white flies are more problematic in two year cycles. White flies will not be controlled by most pesticides. I do have traps for male fruit flies. (it also attracts fruit flies)

Scale are also difficult to treat. For those I use soap and water, a brush and selective pruning.
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Thrips and mites are difficult to control. They do have predators so I only treat when the damage is severe or if they are on the orchids. After all, the orchids only bloom once a year. I could limit the amount of thrips if I got rid of the roses, orchids, gardenia, and plumeria, but I am not willing to part with all of those plants. However, they can be selectively treated. Water or alcohol works to hold down their populations too.

Ants: I do have some greenhouse frogs that I got accidentally from plants I brought home. They chirp a lot, but otherwise they do eat ants. For the most part Terro ant bait is placed around the gardenia, lemon grass, and citrus plants since they will also farm aphids, mealy bugs, and scale. In the house, I use diatomaceous earth on the perimeter inside the house and deadline chalk and boric acid around the windows and doors.

Snails and slugs: I have very few predators. The birds will eat the snails after I kill them. I do have some cannibal snails. Unfortunately, they will also eat each other. I go on regular snail hunts in the early morning and I do use slug bait. It would be more efficient to have a toad or hen, but I don't have either one. Slug bait kills frogs but not birds or rats, those just keep coming back for more.

For the most part, I have not had to use much more than water and scouting to control pests, and snail bait. The garden patrol takes care of most things for me. I only intervene when things get out of control. If my plants are kept healthy, they fend off pests and disease better. The weak plants get pulled. I have ti leaves that are hosts for fruit flies. I control the fruit flies by controlling the ti. I prune the ones nearby and I have not had to spray them to keep the cucumbers from being stung. I don't plant squash near the cucumber, as the squash will attract the fruit flies to the cucumber.

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TomatoNut95
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2069
Joined: Sun May 26, 2019 11:11 am
Location: Texas Zone 8

Unfortunately all my garden patrol worked are either not doing their job, not even my Carpenter bee friends, or my spiders or mantises are to teeny tiny to catch much. 🙄

Outside I hear my momma Cardinal peeping away. 😊

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TNCatHerder
Full Member
Posts: 54
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:54 pm
Location: East TN

Full platoon of gnomes

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Not mine, they're expensive. My sister found them on Etsy.



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