Adding Beneficial Insects To Our Garden

So we have something going on lately, one being a HUGE ant population that we are working on and something else going on that we can’t figure out.  We are treating everything, hoping we can win this battle.  We are doing soil tests to make sure we aren’t crazy, then of course we will do our best to get the soil where it needs to be.

I say that to say this…

Last night we ran to Ace to pick up a few things and saw some lady bugs that you could buy, along with some praying mantises.  I was sold instantly, since we had seen them before – but with the fight going on at the moment… it seemed like a no-brainer.  Shala was down with the lady bugs, however she was fighting me with the mantises.  We decided to do the lady bugs first and hope that the mantises come naturally.  We had seen a few around, so hopefully they would bring their friends.

We got back home and I got the job of letting them go.  Which was fine with me.  I like them.  So we popped open the tub they came in and started putting them where they could find some food and a home.  It was pretty cool to see them all running around and trying to find a place to call home. 

Adding Lady Bugs to Our Garden

Adding Lady Bugs To Your Garden

You can see them crawling around on me and what not… kinda cool.  Freaks you out for a second, because you think they are all over you… but it goes away quickly.

So as we were dropping these guys off Shala noticed something on our Hibiscus and so we started looking in there and sure enough we had a young praying mantis just chilling out.  We were happy we didn’t buy any yet, we will hope this guy throws big parties and invites all his friends over.  Check him out, he was fast so it is a lil blurry.

Praying Mantis - in our garden

We got all the lady bugs situated and our hopes to have a pest free garden are high.  If you would have told me a year ago that we would be buying lady bugs and sprinkling them around our garden… I would have laughed in your face.

Now your laughing in mine. 😉

7 thoughts on “Adding Beneficial Insects To Our Garden”

  1. You’re so lucky you have mantises (mantisees? manteese?) naturally setting up shop in your yard. Surely that’s a good sign. I bought some once, but never saw them again after setting them free. So glad you caught him on camera.

  2. rees cowden – thanks for stopping by, yeah we are working hard on it. Hopefully we can curve them.

    megan – not sure the plural form.. I just ran with it. I was happy to see the lil guy, like you.. was worried about releasing them and them running off to “greener” pastures. Hopefully our lady bugs weren’t scared off by our massive lioness of a dog (Izzy).

  3. We have seen a few running around. I’m hoping that they are laying eggs on some of our plants.

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