Bonus Episode August 2022 Earwigs are Beneficial Insects for your Garden

Bonus Episode August 2022 Earwigs are Beneficial Insects for your Garden

I thought you might like to hear my recent article in the TV News:

August 2022

It’s hot, is it not?! But that’s summer, and at least our nights drop down to cool things off. Besides you can always go jump in a lake, we certainly have lots of them around the Tobacco Valley. For me, getting to run through the sprinkler while I water the lawn is still pretty exciting as we didn’t have running water for a long time. And watering the garden is the word of the day! WATER, WATER, WATER. I don’t feel like we can keep our garden/lawn hydrated.

We are finally starting to harvest more and more each day even though it seems late in the season. We had a delicious dinner the other night of fresh potatoes, string beans and cherry tomatoes! Our beets are getting bigger and the beet greens we thin between rows are delicious to sauté with some mini beets mixed in. I also like to blanch the greens to freeze for winter when I’m jonesing for some deep leafy vegetables and I can’t bring myself to buy them in the produce aisle.

One of the most common questions I get about the garden is what to do about pests?

This year it seems like there is an overwhelming amount of earwigs AKA pincher bugs everywhere, which used to really creep me out but I have since learned are some of the best insects to have in your garden as they eat a lot of the bad bugs that destroy your plants. Contrary to popular folk tales they do not crawl in your ears and lay eggs in your brain.

They do like cool moist places to hang out and are generally only active at night. They are attracted to bright lights so even though they are nocturnal they are often found underneath pots on porches that are lit up in the evenings. Earwigs tend to hang by themselves, not belonging to a colony so infestations are usually not a problem. If you find them indoors, they’ll appreciate being moved back outside where they can act like a sanitation engineer clearing your garden of pests and disease.

Earwigs are not a threat to humans and won’t bite or sting you. Their pincers are for eating prey and repelling predators. Although they have small wings, they don’t really fly as much as glide from a high spot.

Another benefit is they attract birds, lizards and frogs to your garden who enjoy eating these power predators. Besides gobbling the pests in your garden earwigs also enjoy feasting on dead and decaying leaves helping your plants look and feel healthier.

Another important garden tip I have learned over the years is to spend a lot of time observing your plots. When you see something like bug bites on your leaves turn them over in the early morning and see if there’s a caterpillar there that needs removing.

If you do get an aphid infestation, see if you don’t get a beneficial insect that will eat the aphids and then move on. Many people post photos of tiny black wasps eating the tasty white bugs and want to kill them instead of letting them do their job. Often if you just wait a few days the whole problem will take care of itself. You might find ladybugs or lacewings lured in by the aphids who also disappear when their food supply is gone. Beware, ladybug babies look like weird black bugs you might be afraid are eating your plants but they actually are really good for your garden.

Here’s to the beneficial bugs of summer!

True Leaf Market is wanting to sponsor the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast and is giving a discount code for listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds:

Avsnitt(298)

Bee a part of the solution | The Sustainability Project | Care Bellamy the beekeeping REALTOR®  who “Cares” | Florida

Bee a part of the solution | The Sustainability Project | Care Bellamy the beekeeping REALTOR® who “Cares” | Florida

I’m so excited I have a listener on the line who is going to share a ton of golden seeds! I talked to her before from Florida and she is going to share with us about her Sustainability Project! 1. Tell us a little about yourself. By day, I’m a REALTOR® and beekeeper. I’m also a 3rd generation farmer.  My grandparents owned a 100 acre wheat farm on the prairie in rural Dufresne, Manitoba. My family lived off the land, they grew their food seasonally in a 1 acre vegetable garden. After the local community collectively brought in the fall harvest, they would busily preserve and can their produce for storage in their root cellar. These people were a hardy bunch, they managed to survive the brutually harsh winters with minimal resources using a wood burning stove for heat, crude electric and no running water or indoor plumbing. They kept and cared for livestock and only took what they needed to survive, my ancestors practiced “The Tragedy of the Commons” method.  That’s how they managed to raise a family of 8 in rural Manitoba. And Manitoba is where people go to see the polar bears right? Yes Churchill Manitoba is where the polar bears are. Then you went to the opposite end of the continent practically to Florida. Yes I did I got hired to work for Disney at the Epcot Center back in the early 80s and that’s where I met my husband two weeks later and we’ve been here ever since! That’s so romantic! I always wanted to work for Disney, I tried to get a job or get into art school at the California Institute of Arts in LA. Well, they must have liked me! I managed to beat out 64 other people fro the job! So yay for me! And you worked there for a long time right? Yes 35 years! 2. Tell me about your first gardening experience? We used to visit the farm in the summer time every two years, however my mom! When my mother moved to the big city of Toronto, Ontario, she became a backyard farmer and composter carrying on her family farming tradition. I began helping my mother garden as a young child, she taught me valuable lessons in planting, harvesting and food preservation skills. All these years later I’ve been utilizing this and it’s been working out fantastic for me. Luckily for me, both my parents were award winning gardeners so pulling weeds or fresh carrots comes naturally. So then is it challenging down in Florida? Do you have to learn different practices to grow in that climate? Well, gardening is pretty much the same wherever you go. IT’s just the conditions and the climate. In Florida there is a sandy soil, where my parents lived it was a deep rich soil. You have to plant things things that grow...

7 Jan 201959min

Replay of 2018 Garden Goals Challenge from the Organic Gardener Podcast! 2019 challenge coming VERY SOON!

Replay of 2018 Garden Goals Challenge from the Organic Gardener Podcast! 2019 challenge coming VERY SOON!

I’m so close to wrapping up Free Garden Course.com and I know you are going to love the new one that will take place in a real google classroom! When it’s ready, we’ll have a new 2019 Garden Goals challenge and full color workbook I think you will love! Go ahead and listen to last year’s challenge. There’s a facebook group you can join and even access the google classroom with access code 75yju4. Do you want to save time in your garden? Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own? Well, our 2018 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey! Free Garden Course.com So, if you follow me you probably know that I created a Free Garden Course also known as Free Organic Garden Course over Christmas break! Days 1-8 2018GardenGoalsChallenge For the first 8 days of 2018 I’m going to walk you through the steps of planning your garden goals so you are growing awesome nutrient dense vegetables with the least amount of work and time. Now I’m not gonna fool you and say it’s all gonna be easy but I will say it will be worth it.  Day One is all about brainstorming!  You can  download the first 30 days here   while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.  <img class="size-medium wp-image-4367 aligncenter" src="https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SailboatPeas-225x300.jpg" alt="boat of peas" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SailboatPeas-225x300.jpg 225w,...

3 Jan 201953min

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