Ladybird boxes? Can anyone tell me how to kind my own bug boxes (ladybirds,...
Can anyone tell me how to kind my own bug boxes (ladybirds, hoverflies, bees etc.) ? All the sites i go on try to trade me one, but i'd rather fashion my own as i have some spare wood and it's more rewarding and fun if me and the kids bring in our own.
Also any plants that i can grow that will attract these type of predators to my garden as i wish to progress organic and stop using chemicals contained by my veg plot.
Thanks very much for any give support to you can provide.
Mac and Kids.
Answers: I don't know if you grow dill, fennel, cilantro or carrot in your garden - but if you do - bring in sure you allow some of them to go to flower. The ubeliferous flowers attract not solitary ladybirds, but LOTS of beneficial preditor insects. Tiny predatory wasps & the like (Yes, "wasps", - but not adjectives wasps are aggressive, person-stinging creatures. Most are necter feeders, and "bad-bug" killers.) Tansy, Queen Anne's Lace, and yes, Dandelions also attract them. I grow cilantro - and I other let some jump to flower and seed - so I own seed for subsequent year. By gum if those plants aren't SWARMING with beneficials when they're contained by flower. I'll take seed and sprinkle them here and there surrounded by my garden. (That's all the "planting" they give the impression of being to need).
Remember when you use chemical bug killers, you snuff ALL the bugs. And it's usually the plant-eating bugs that recover fastest, coming rear to devistate your garden before the predatory bugs are competent to come back. Then they nurture unchecked, wreaking havoc, and the traditional gardener then feel compelled to use MORE chemicals to get rid of them - unsophisticatedly locking themselves into a chemical cycle.
Interplanting your veggies with flowering plants, and also mixing up your veggies - not planting adjectives like-kinds together, have a path of "confusing" the plant-eaters, and even when they find tasty plants, they aren't presented near quite the smorgasbord, and desecrate is minimized. With beneficial-attracting flowering plants in between, the preditors are RIGHT where on earth you want them to be.
As far as bug houses - any little shelter thing placed within the garden they will make use of. I haven't bothered next to a bug-house. they find plenty of cover on their own.
Well what more can anyone say THX