Think Outside the Box To Control Insects
Think "Out(side) of the Box" to Control Insects
Save money. Save the environment.
Bugs sure can bug us. There are over a million, yes 1,000,000,
species of insects with populations estimated way beyond the
trillions living on the Earth with us. Sooner or later, most
likely sooner, species like mosquitoes and moths, Japanese
Beetles, black flies, carpenter ants and carpenter bees are
going to be eating us. Really. They'll be biting on our bodies,
our greenery, our food, our clothes and our homes. Controlling
insects is a must, but maybe continuously spreading poisonous
chemicals should not the only answer.
Thinking "out of the box" is the current way to refer to
utilizing uncommon, creative, often never before tried methods
to find solutions to problems. It's as if all the known
solutions and the methods to get to those solutions can be
considered in the "already box," and we are challenged to think
in the non-standard way about what's possibly available
"outside."
Always think "out of the box" when you search to design or
decorate, to solve any problem or issue, and to fix what's
broken. Don't only use what you can buy "off the shelf" which
works right away as it comes out of the box from which it came...
We wouldn't be here "on the 'net" if it wasn't for thinkers who
went "out of the box" to create such things as the vacuum tube
in 1907 and the first computer in 1938, then the transistor in
1947, and in the best example of all, two men working separately
in 1959 came up with the integrated circuit. IC's use
semiconductor crystals which were totally dismissed as
electronically useless at the time of first vacuum tube. How
about that?
Here are the best of the extremely uncommon insect control
ideas available that are "out of the box." The list below tells
of these FREE or low cost and environmentally friendly ways to
control insects that make a pest of themselves:
PUT UP BIRDHOUSES
Place several of them in different sizes in different locations
around your property. Get different species in different sizes
this way.
Baby birds need to be fed insects. They can't digest grain,
seed, or worms yet. So, even bird species that aren't insect
eaters consume many of the bugs that bug us. An increase in
birds will mean a decrease in the insect population. It's as
simple as that. Besides, watching the lunatic antics of our
"fine feathered friends" can be downright entertaining.
In the 1930's, it was a man who made Purple Martin birdhouses in
his woodshop that began the now deeply entrenched lie how these
birds eat up to 2,000 mosquitoes per day. It was creative
advertising. He was thinking "out of the box," you see. During
the great depression the man himself was ravenously hungry and
going broke. Other birds that come along with the Purple Martin
like eating mosquitoes far more, but none will ever eat anywhere
near 2,000 in a day. Bats are the best mosquito munchers.
PUT UP BIRDFEEDERS
By attracting lots of birds to your property, adding to their
number, you'll help subtract from the number of insects you
don't want. By keeping the moms and dads healthy, you'll help
more insect eating baby birds get born. Birdseed in the 50-pound
bag really costs very little.
BATS ARE BEST, SO PUT UP A BATBOX
A single bat can eat 1000 or more mosquitoes in a single night.
This has been scientifically documented. Here you're getting a
"fun factoid." Well, here's another potentially fun factoid
-batboxes are very small, like bats are themselves. So their
houses are also small. Read that as cheap and quick to build.
Bats avoid all chemical odors because most will get them sick.
It's true. Even a clean piece of wood from the lumber yard which
is kiln-dried won't do for batboxes because of the chemicals
like Wollmanizing Salts and zinc chromate which are added in the
kiln. Forget about plastics, or plywood, composition wood,
masonite and the like because you can't use glue. The wood
pieces you'll need are all 6 inches and less in size. Just slap
together the small boxes with untreated, unfinished raw wood
only. It's a quick, simple pennies-to-build kind of
project.connected with screws or nails. Be sure not to hang the
box on walls near doorways. There are several websites with
plans you'll find just by typing "batbox" in your favorite
search engine.
CREATE A LIZARD HABITAT
If it is alright to do it, bring 'em home. When you see one,
catch it in a can or box with some airholes and release it near
a rock wall at your home. No rock wall? Just pile some rocks
from your property where you think the lizard will be happy. Do
another websearch and find what will make the best spot for a
lizard family where you live.
Be sure you take the lizard from a place where you won't
accidentally be breaking a law, like "theft of wildlife from
within a park." Private property is the best. Nockamixon State
Park, for example, over 5,000 acres just 13 miles from our
Highland Hill Farm home, has a simple rule, "Don't Take
Anything!" But there's a special time of year, similar to the
season for hunting deer, where "lizard hunts, etc." are
encouraged. You could always go to a pet store too.
DON'T FORGET SALAMANDERS & NEWTS
Like lizards, these little reptiles eat bugs too. Newts mostly
eat worms and fish eggs, but one little 23-gram, less than an
ounce, baby Spotted Salamander eats its weight every three or
four days, growing to a 125-gram, 4-ounce adult that is as much
as 9-inches long. How does it get there? By eating insects and
insect larvae along with worms and other salamanders. BRING HOME
FROGS AND TOADS
If your landscape has a suitable place for these critters,
they'll each eat countless bugs in a day. Best of all, most
frogs and toads are cheap to buy if you have to go to a pet
store.
BRING HOME A PRAYING MANTIS NEST
If you see a praying mantis nest, bring it home and place in on
one of your most valued shrubs. It is a superbly beneficial
"beetle removing device." Again, be aware of the laws governing
your source location removing the nest. Would you believe there
are about 2,000 species of Praying Mantis, or "Mantids" as
biologists call them?
BRING HOME A SKUNK
Catch a skunk. Perhaps there's one that's an issue at a friend's
home. Get a "Have-a-Heart" trap, you know, the wire basket
boxlike traps that the ASPCA and all the animal shelters use.
Place a blanket over the trap. When you get "lucky" and there's
a skunk inside, don't make any sudden moves, don't bang the
trap, or your luck will end in amidst a cloud of bad odor.
Slowly cover the trap with a blanket in a manner that the skunk
never sees you, just the blanket. Ever so slowly, bring home the
skunk in the back of an open truck, then ever so gently, release
it at your property. These smelly old-timers love to eat grubs
and cutworms. Having them live near vegetable gardens or
expensive trees and shrubs that you just transplanted will truly
help the odds for them to thrive. Remember to observe where the
skunk settles and place a warning sign there. As Teddy Roosevelt
said, "Walk softly and carry a big stick." The big stick here is
to use for mounting your sign, that is. DO NOT KILL YOUR SNAKES
These slithering reptiles eat mice, bugs, and beetles. Yes, the
gardener's worst pest around here in Bucks County, PA, the
Japanese Beetle, is "comfort food" for snakes. Of the 102
different snakes in all of North America only 20 are poisonous
and they're the biggest ones. Pencil-thin little snakes for your
yard and garden are certainly not a problem. The venomous, read
that as poisonous, Copperhead and Massasauga Snakes may be as
small as two feet long, but they're also over an inch in
diameter. Just don't get close to these guys, okay? No reaching
into hollow logs or under large rocks unless you check first.
NEVER PLACE BEETLE TRAPS NEAR YOUR HOUSE
Do you hate Japanese Beetles? Give them away. Seriously. Never
place a beetle trap close to your house on your own property,
unless all residents of your area are attempting to control
beetles. The reason is, beetle traps work by attracting the
beetles. You will get rid of the relative few beetles that are
around your house or garden, yet you'll most likely attract even
more beetles to the very spot where you are vulnerable. If you
are "trap-minded," the best idea is to give the traps away. Yes,
"It is better to give than to receive." This old Bible-derived
quote is even good for Japanese Beetles which are successfully
controlled using the environmentally safe low-impact traps that
use food and sex to bring 'em in. Japanese Beetle traps are
usually made as a bag that you hang about 4 to 5 feet off the
ground. It is never a good idea to place them near your plants
that the Japanese Beetles will eat. So I simply suggest you give
the traps to your neighbors at Christmas! Actually, if you want,
hang the traps on open-space trees near your property boundary.
Thus, the beetles will be directed away from your house and the
critical portion of your property.
What we do on our farms is to hang traps on the branches of the
trees that overhang our ponds. Then we open up the bottoms of
the beetle traps. The trapped little buggers fall into the ponds
and our fish eat them up, growing ever bigger. What a way to
recycle and not have to empty the traps!
You do know we invite customers to come fish our ponds, right?
Just give us a call first.
Some of the affected popular plants and trees favored by
Japanese Beetles are:
Annual Aster flower
Astilbe, False Spirea flower
Canna Lilly flower
Cosmos flower
Daylilly flower Delphinium flower
Hollyhock flower Iris flower
Marigold flower v Peony flower
Rose flower
Zinnia flower Linden tree
Purple plum tree
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We invite to go to our website at http://www.seedlingsrus.com
Hope to see you soon, Bill