Every evening, I go out to my chicken coop to shut the chickens and ducks in (and the predators out). I also check the rest of my animals, their water supply, and look over my garden beds. Its usually cooler, quieter, I get a view of the nocturnal life and did I mention cooler?

Since I’ve not sprayed any pesticides in over 2 years, I end up with quite a selection of insects and smaller critters, both good and bad. I’m finding that the longer I let nature take its course, the less I see my gardens get decimated by bugs. I still see issues, but not to the extremes I had when I started gardening, so I’ll continue to try things this way.

So, when I’m making my evening rounds, I take the opportunity to eliminate what pests I can. It brings me closer to my food, keeps me involved with the growing, and like most things in the garden, seems to be therapeutic. Snails, leaf-legged bugs, and various caterpillars are fall prey to direct pressure (I squish them).

This week, I ran into a predator with an odd habit. A garden-orb spider. Walking under one of my trees, I notice a large web with some activity in the center of it. A spider a little bigger than a quarter is running back and forth, spinning a web about three feet across, suspended in an opening about 20 feet across. The web is the shape and construction very similar to what everyone thinks of when they think of spider webs – roughly circular, with spokes radiating out from a center. I’ve seen this (or one just like it) spider building these webs before in my yard, and the amazing this is that during the daylight hours, there is zero sign that any spider was ever there. None of these webs are ever seen during the day, something I don’t mind one bit. However, if you walk into one after dark, I’m certain that most everyone will loose there cool, particularly if the spider is in the web when you walk face-first into it. Ask me how I know 🙁

Another thing I get to do is take a “wasp census”. I see the nests and some of the inhabitants during the day, but after dark, ALL the wasps from a nest are home, and rather docile, as long as you don’t touch them. As annoying as they can be, I’ve found them to be a great asset in ridding my garden of pests, so I leave them alone. So far, I’ve gotten more out of letting them live than I would if I were to have them killed

Something I do NOT leave alone are snails. These slow-moving terrors have a voracious appetite for destruction in my garden. All of my leafy vegetables that are close to the ground seem to be fair game to any passing snail. I have a collard plant that is over four feet tall, and it seems to be immune, but every one of my cabbages, my Swiss chard, and my lettuces all have snail problems. Luckily, even an old guy like me can sneak up on a snail. Usually I throw them into a pail of soapy water, a favorite trick for dealing with most bugs I hand pick.

A summer pest I see both day and night, but have had quite a bit of success dealing with after dark, is the leaf legged bug (go here to read how destructive they can be). I have found through trial and error (and research), that sunflowers make a great “trap crop”, or sacrificial crop used to distract bugs from the more important things in the garden. Several weeks ago, knowing these bugs will be returning, I planted some sunflower seeds in every one of my raised beds. Once grown out and flowered, I’ll go out at night and hand pick these bugs off the sunflowers and drop them into soapy water. These are probably the most damaging pest I deal with, since they damage just about everything.

So grab a flashlight, go out into your yard, and look to see whats out there moving about. Some of it is good, some is bad, but all of it is yours to deal with. Why not get acquainted a bit and get some local knowledge about YOUR environment? It can’t hurt to learn a little about your yard’s inhabitants.

Plus, did I mention it’s cooler at night?

db