Beneficial Insects and Invertebrates in the Vegetable Garden

Posted on 11. Jul, 2009 by Tracey in Pests

This is Part 2 of the Beneficial Insects and Wildlife in the Vegetable Garden Series. Please click on the following link to view Part 1 – Lacewings, Ladybirds and Hoverflies.

In this weeks post I discuss the importance of earthworms, beetles, spiders and harvestmen and how to attract them to your vegetable garden.

Earthworm

Earthworms
Earthworms are important in the garden and are always found in healthy numbers in good rich moist soil. They are coldblooded and breath through their skin, so they can drown in too much water. Garden worms are 5-7 cm long and like to feast on dead and decaying matter, compost and soil.

Worms tend to swell or contract when they have eaten a large meal or if the temperature changes from hot to cold. They are also great food for hedgehogs, birds, mice, foxes and slow worms.

Advantages of Earthworms in your Vegetable Garden

1. Tunneling – this creates air passages for moisture and oxygen and allows water to run through the soil more easily.
2. Movement of the soil – gives the sames benefits as digging the soil over to a fine tilth.
3. Worm Castings or vermicompost – where worms leave behind their own manure which improves the condition and adds nitrogen to the soil.
4. Recycling organic matter – worms recycle the dead, decaying organic materials like old leaves by eating them and excreting it out back into the soil.

How to Attract Worms into your Vegetable Garden

• Avoid using pesticides as worms soft bodies which are 80% water are very susceptible to toxic chemicals in the soil. For organic tips please view my post on Organic Vegetable Growing.
• Worms usually live in the top few centimeters of the soil so use mulches either in the vegetable or garden flower borders. Mulch helps to maintain the moisture level and soil temperature so it is ideal for worms. Mulching also keeps down the weeds which is another benefit. Mulches are compost, lawn clippings, bark chippings or similar.
• Add compost and organic fertilizers to improve the condition of the soil but also to help feed the worms.
• Worms love lawns, leaf piles, dead leaves and wood and anywhere where it is moist and dark.

Beetle

Beetles

The violet beetle is black but has touches of violet on its back and wing case. It is flightless and one of the UK’s largest beetles. The common ground beetle is smaller and has the ability to run very fast across soil and uneven ground to escape or attack its prey.

There are 352 species of ground beetles in the UK.

Advantages of Beetles in the Vegetable Garden

1. Ground and Rove beetles (smaller beetles) can climb plants in order to eat aphids and caterpillar larvae.
2. Violet Beetles (larger species) are predators of the dark, hunting for snails, slugs, worms and leather jackets (daddy longlegs).

How to Attract Beetles into your Vegetable Garden

• Beetles are nocturnal and need a hiding place during the day such as plant pots, log piles, chipped bark, rocks, compost bin so provide an area for them to seek shelter.
• Beetles are also found near areas of scrub land, parks, fields, hedgerows and woodland.
• If your plants or vegetables have had pest problems in the past such as aphids or slugs or snails, beetles along with other creatures may have already been attracted to your garden.

Spider

Spiders and Harvestmen

Garden spiders are brown, grey or yellowy in colour and usually display a white cross marking on their backs. They live in gardens all year round but are particularly visible in May to November.

Harvestmen or harvest spiders are not true spiders as they belong to the mites, scorpions, millipedes family. They have very tiny bodies and lots of thin legs. Their legs are so fragile they usually fall off when handled, similar to daddy longlegs. Harvestmen do not produce silk glands therefore are unable to spin webs.

Advantages of Spiders and Harvestmen in the Vegetable Garden

1. Spiders have a unique web trapping tool in the aid of capturing its prey. Insects such as aphids, flies, other spiders, ants and other flying insects become entangled in the sticky webbing preventing them from escaping.
2. Harvestmen do not have fangs and therefore pull their food into their mouths by their legs. They particularly enjoy the following garden pests: slugs, snails, aphids, caterpillars. Other food include mites, flies, spiders, worms, dead and decaying plant matter.

Other Beneficial Wildlife and Insects Posts you may be interested in:

• Beneficial Insects in the Vegetable Garden – Part 1
• Beneficial Insects and Invertebrates in the Vegetable Garden – Part 2
• Beneficial Bees and Parasitic Wasps in the Vegetable Garden – Part 3
• Hedgehogs – Gardeners Friend and Pest Control

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Tags: Beetle, Beneficial Insects, Earthworm, invertebrates, Spider, vegetable garden