Oak #1 Oak #2 Oak #3 Oak #4 Hillsides Handful of Soil Covercrop Growing Mowing Covercrop Vegetarians Carnivores Hover Fly Larva Hover Fly Adults Cilantro Flowers Good Bug Blend Fennel flowers Buckwheat Kale Parsley Owl House Nesting Box Bluebird Eggs Baby Bluebirds One Week Two Weeks Other Tactics Let Nature Talk

Kale After I pick a kale field for a few months, the plants get worn out and attract lots of aphids. I mow and disc the kale back into the soil. But I leave one or two rows of aphid infested kale as breeding ground for the carnivores, such as parasitic wasps, assassin bugs, aphid lions and minute pirate bugs In their adult stage, most carnivorous insects need flowers. In their larvae stage, they need insects to eat. I make sure there are plenty of both. Another trick I’ve learned is to not kill the first-of-the-year infestation of cabbage aphids. I lose some of my first plantings but this builds my beneficial carnivores so that the following cabbage plantings have very few aphids. <- Previous Buckwheat Next -> Parsley

Back to Homepage