Benefits of Organic Gardening, Continued

Mary Beth: As promised, here are more pictures of the lovely creatures that will take up residence in your garden when you stop using pesticides. I’ve really enjoyed the variety of bugs that have shared my garden this summer.

What a magnificent creature! The mantis is the stuff of nightmares — fierce and merciless.

And then there's this funny-looking guy. The spotted cucumber beetle is a pollinator, but it carries bacterial wilt in its gut and can cause a lot of damage in your garden.

Dragonfly

Another one – the color amazes me.

A sweat bee, I think.

A syrphid fly.

I really hit the jackpot a few days ago, though. I found a monarch butterfly chrysalis and I was lucky enough to have my camera on hand when the butterfly emerged! I’ll post the photos this weekend.

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Benefits of Organic Gardening

Mary Beth & Barbara: Here’s another post where we’re going to let the pictures tell the story. All we really want to say is that the rewards for not using chemical pesticides are many. Some are obvious, like just knowing that you’re not adding to the chemical load in the environment. Others are more subtle and you’ll have to slow down and pay attention to recognize them. (That’s a good thing all by itself.)

Since becoming organic gardeners, we have noticed a marked increase of wildlife in our gardens, mostly for the better. Sure you might get a few more pesky bugs, but for the most part you’ll be getting a lot more of the good guys who will help you keep those pests under control. We’ve seen lizards and insect-eating birds in Barbara’s garden and  frogs, dragonflies, butterflies, and all kinds of bees in Mary Beth’s garden.

If you take a seat in your garden and stay still for a while, you’ll begin to notice a world of activity and see some of the benefits of organic gardening for yourself.

This honeybee looks like she's high on pollen. Do we need to give this an R rating?

Hang on little peeper!

Now you're ok.

Bumble bee butt! Makes me laugh every time I look at it.

This little crab spider found the perfect setting to show off her beautiful chartreuse hue.

Be sure and check back early next week when we’ll have more photos of our garden creatures to share with you.

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