Organic Pest Control

While I desperately try to become a competent gardener, my flower beds have gone to...the seeds. And last year, they sensuously conceived hollyhock seeds and now I'm waiting for these pillars of color to explode.

These little devils are waiting too. In the meantime, they are having an outdoor picnic every day in my flowerbeds.



I'm a little slow to the draw. Here we are in our 3rd summer out in a lil'-bit-country living and I finally realized (hopefully in time) that big, juicy, highly mobile grasshoppers are just a month away.




Here at our local seed store, you can purchase this little cup for eight bucks. Inside are 2 egg sacs filled with sleeping baby mantids.



They pull them out of their refrigerator, and with warmer temperatures they wake up and get ready to roll. Prop them on a branch high enough that little ground creatures won't get them, and low enough that flying bat creatures won't get them, away from the sprinklers too...well, then I should have 200 or so preying mantids ready to devour harmful bugs. Make that 800 or so. Four mantis pods in all, and I'm hoping there's enough pests for them to eat that they don't go cannibal on me.



Wish me luck!