The female wasp lays her eggs inside the Hornworm caterpillar. They have a long stinger but don’t worry, that’s for the Hornworm, not you. These tiny, slender wasps have spindly legs and an orange body with black wings. This means the larvae of the wasp live off of a host insect, and the host inevitably dies. These slender and delicate looking wasps are parasitoids. The braconid wasp is nature’s brutal answer to the giant, lumbering Hornworm. And it only takes a few Hornworms to wipe out your entire tomato crop.Įnter the braconid wasp from the Hymenoptera family (think wasps, bees, and ants). These giant caterpillars epitomize Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” with their voracious appetites. If there is one thing that strikes fear in the hearts of tomato growers everywhere, it’s finding a Hornworm on your beloved tomato plants. Here they will turn into adult midges who will start the whole process over again. Once they’ve eaten enough, the larvae drop off of the plants and burrow into the soil. The larvae are what eat aphids, and they eat a lot!Īphid midge larvae will happily chow down on around 50+ aphids a day, and they’ll keep eating for up to a week. Keep an eye out for tiny orange eggs under the leaves of your plants, which will turn into fat little orange larvae. Aphids make ‘honeydew’ which attracts aphid midges. And the best part is, if you have an aphid problem, the midges are probably already on their way. The Aphid midge, a member of the Cecidomyiid family, loves to snack on over 60 different types of aphids. It’s kind of weird to think about, right? “Honey, do you know if my order of lady beetles came in today’s mail? 1. You can even purchase some of these helpful insects and add them to your garden. Let me introduce you to a few garden-friendly bug allies. We can start by shelving pesticides and letting the bugs do the work for us. As all insect populations are on the decline due to climate change, we need to be more thoughtful about the way we deal with pests in our backyards. Pesticides don’t discriminate and end up destroying all the bugs – good or bad. By allowing, or even purposefully adding helpful bugs to your garden, you’re letting nature take some of the work out of keeping your garden pest-free.Īnd utilizing these little guys can be preferable, and often more effective than using a pesticide. And often, these insects are eating the ones destroying your garden.
Many of the insects inhabiting your garden are there because it’s a veritable buffet of their favorite food – other bugs. But wait!īefore you pulverize that little critter, take a second look. For many of us, the sight of a creepy-crawly bug in our beautiful garden stirs an age-old instinct – SQUASH IT.
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