Remember also, the young of most beneficials eat plants so, you cannot panic when beneficial wasp larva (rose slugs) appear. You'll have to wear blinders to avoid the damaged leaves caused by them. I respectfully, but firmly disagree with this particular information. The young of most beneficials also eat insects, and often it is only the eating that the young do that is beneficial at all. The adults of many beneficials, especially the little ones, either don't eat anything or eat nectar and pollen. That's why planting a variety of flowers, especially including small flowers such as sweet alyssum, dill, fennel, and yarrow, is useful. It attracts into your garden those little, tiny, just 2 millimeter long wasps you don't even see that are also looking to lay eggs on the aphids and rose slugs eating your flowers. The wasps that are beneficials . They're so tiny you don't generally even realize they're around. They can't even sting because they don't have stingers. . Sawfiles are in the same insect order as wasps (& so adult sawflies do bear a resemblance to wasps), but so also are bees and ants (which also bear a resemblance to wasps). Adult sawflies aren't predatory (& so aren't beneficial), and as immatures (such as rose slugs) they're plant eating pests.

Absolutely. Leaf-footed bugs are not your friend. If you learn to recognize and kill them while they're young, they won't live long enough to do a lot of damage in your garden. I'm going to link a page that has a photo of the immature leaf-footed bugs in the center near the top of the page. When you see a bunch of little bugs like that clustered together, they generally are leaf-footed bug nymphs and you're doing your garden plants, especially tomato fruit, a big favor by killing them all. If you see a similar-looking bug that is alone on a plant, that usually is the nymph of an assassin bug/wheel bug that is beneficial. I always leave the lone ones alone because they're the beneficial ones, but I kill the ones I find in clusters. Usually I start seeing the wheel bug and assassin bug nymphs in May, but I usually don't see leaf-footed bug nymphs until June (or even July in a really good year, and this was not a really good year). With pests like squash bugs, stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs, I try to kill all the young ones I see early in the season in order to keep their population growth slowed down. Stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs are incredibly damaging to tomato fruit, and you know what a tomato maniac I am. I'll share my garden space with lots of pest insects and leave most of them alone, knowing the good garden helpers like toads, frogs, lizards, birds and beneficial insects will get them, but I never miss a chance to kill a squash bug, stink bug or leaf-footed bug. Leaf-Footed Bug Info

rhizo1: I've heard that onions and garlic repel aphids, for example. I'm not adverse to that thinking, but I'm not sure which way to go. For example, I can put a pot of garlic shoots next to my tomatoes to repel aphids or I can grow some plants that will ATTRACT ladybugs et al to munch on them. All I know is my soil doesn't seem to be totally healthy even after I add copious amounts of compost 1-2 times a year. Don't get me wrong, I get some nice veggies, but I always seem to be fighting the above mentioned bugs and/or the diseases that may accompany them. kimmsr says that I should have 5 worms per shovelful-- I don't. Should I BUY some? Should i be sprinkling cornmeal to propagate them like some people do with vermicomposting? Anyhow, back to the pest... I know the basics: 1) Healthy soil, healthy plants(One thing I try to be proactive with) 2) Target specific pests with organic cides such as BT(pretty successful last year when I used it from from day1 exery 2 weeks whether I saw any hornworms or not), neem oil, hort oil, sulfur dust, DE, and insecticidal soap. 3) Rotate crops(somehow with my very limited space, I do manage a 3 year on every FAMILY of veggies that I grow. 4) Grow plants to attract beneficials such as ladybugs, lacewings, parasitic wasps, etc. That may keep the PEST populations down. (I'm still not convinced about ants being a beneficial since they protect sucking insects like aphids and whiteflies that don't do a whole lot of foliar damage but carry disease and fungi that cause disease). My goal -- Let nature help me fight the fight without taking up TOO much space and water(SoCal water is expensive). I'd like to grow a veggie plant besides lettuce and onions that's blemish free( that includes aphid eggs) at maturity -- LOL Thanks Kevin

roguejim, the statement "The primary way to attract Beneficial's is to provide a habitat they can live in and that means food, shelter, and water." is accurate. However, we can manage any or all the elements of a habitat. There is an axiom in the profession that runs, "By the time you see the first insect, there are at least a hundred". It applies to both prey and predator. Seldom have I seen an aphid problem without seeing that (often solitary) adult lady bug on the move. Given time, the predator(s) will bring things under control but the plant or hedge will not look pretty ... and every self-respecting horticulturist will want to mitigate that. So it is back to the (IPM) tool box. It is possible to maintain the 'good looks' by selectively pruning. The "survivors" will entice the predators to stick around. Of course, selectively pruning. is subjective - to the 'eye of the beholder'.