It’s so easy even a cat can do it. At least according to a cat named Marge. One that just so happens to be a popular writer — and loving companion to one P. Allen Smith, gardening legend. Her cat’s eye perspective is certainly unique. In a recent pallensmith.com article, she relates how she wanted her owner to slow down and relax. To accomplish this she talked him into making an insectary by starting a garden just for bugs — to encourage them to stick around and take care of all the plants so he didn’t have to. Come to find out, it wasn’t that hard to do.
The Insectary at the Garden Home Retreat
Allen Smith began, with Marge’s urging, by starting an eight-by-eighty foot garden (trap crop) — more than enough to serve an acre — tilled, amended, organically fertilized, and planted with a diverse selection of flowering plants. The first video that follows explains this in more detail.
Beneficial Insect Releases
Now Allen Smith could have waited until nature populated his new insectary so its beneficial residents could help in the rest of the garden as per Marge’s plan, but he decided to give it a boost. We offered to lend a hand by providing a few of the good guys, as shown being put out in these videos on releasing ladybug adults, lacewing eggs, and Trichogramma spp. wasps eggs:
Releasing Ladybug Adults
Releasing Lacewing Eggs
Releasing Trichogramma spp.
Please Note
For filming purposes, the releases of biocontrols shown in the videos above were made at times that may be contrary to the best times to release as stated in the release instructions we include with our shipments and as described on this site.
