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Some animals do you a favour when it comes to removing bugs and pests from your garden. Here’s a list of those beneficial animals and how to attract them. If you’re wondering how each one of them is helping you out in the garden take a look at this post on beneficial animals.

Birds

Photo by faeryboots.

Birds love the sound of gently moving water, which will attract them to your garden. They also need a birdbath but make sure it’s not deeper than 8 cm (3 inch). When winter comes it’s best to have some sort of heating underneath the birdbath, so that the birds have access to drinking water. Food is necessary too of course, and planting trees with fruits or berries is a good idea when you want to attract birds. In the mating season birds need shelter and nesting material.

Dragonflies

Photo by Krikit ♥.

A pond is great for attracting dragonflies, but don’t put fish in it because they will go after the eggs. Dragonflies prefers to have big flat rocks near the pond where they can soak up energy from the sun. They’re solar powered and will only fly when they reach a certain temperature. They need shelter but two thirds of the pond surface must be out in the sun.

Frogs

Photo by timitalia.

Frogs prefer quiet water and no fish, since the fish will feed on frog eggs. Frogs spend much of their time above water so you’ll need to build a pond with sloped edges making access to surrounding ground easier. When out of the water they like to hide in damp and cool places like half buried clay pots. In the winter frogs lie dormant at the bottom of their pond.

Rove Beetles

Photo by dhobern.

Rove beetles like decomposing organic material lying around: Leaves, decomposing fruits, bark, decaying trees etc.

Tiger Beetles

Photo by .Larry Page.

Tiger beetles are attracted by lights at night. They like to hide in high grass around 8 cm (3 inch), under logs or under mulch. Give them access to water by filling a plate with gravel and placing it on the ground. The rain will keep it fresh.

It’s annoying to have your vegetables eaten up by bugs. Luckily it’s possible to get help from other insects, because they’ll attack those harmful bugs and eat them or feed them to their young. Some plants naturally attract these beneficial insects and some even attract several helpful insects to your garden. In the table below you’ll find the beneficial insects in the left column and the names of the attracting  plants in the top row. Below the table you’ll see a picture of each plant. By planting these in your garden you’ll be able to create a big insect magnet and get help hunting down those hungry bugs:

Coreopsis:

Photo by kabils.

Cosmos:

Photo by Kanko*.

Dill:

Photo by Eran Finkle – ערן פינקל.

Fennel:

Photo by Anika Malone.

Goldenrod:

Photo by Benimoto.

Lemon balm:

Photo by color line.

Sweet alyssum:

Photo by hortulus.

Do you already have any of these beneficial insects in your garden? Where are they hanging out?

Photo by mckaysavage.

1. Write your own garden calender on when to do what and print it out and put it on the wall to be more effective at growing food
2. Write a garden journal to learn more effectively from your experiences
3. Purchase an extra 5 kg kitchen scale and a notebook to find out how much food you are actually able to grow per square meter
4. Make friends with local horse breeders or horse riding schools to get a stable supply of horse manure for your beds
5. Collect organic scraps in a small box in the kitchen and throw it on the compost heap to have something to feed back to your soil. It’s free nutrients for the soil.
6. Turn your compost regularly to speed up composting
7. Collect leaves in the fall and add them to your compost
8. Get an axe and a chopping block for chopping up branches in 5 cm (2 inch) pieces for your compost. Longer pieces than that will sabotage your compost production.
9. Build composting boxes with three compartments with front and top access to make it easy to produce compost
10. Hedge clippings goes into the compost. It’s free nutrients for the soil.
11. Seedlings need 17 hours of light each day to stay healthy
12. Plant fruit trees in your garden to provide shade in the middle of the day
13. Use wood chips on the lanes between your beds instead of spending time on cutting grass
14. Seed saving takes up a lot of area and many spare plants
15. Water the soil not the plants to avoid fungus
16. Grow winter vegetables for a higher yield per square meter
17. Increase diversity in your garden and be rewarded with healthy plants and more food
18. Take good care of the birds in your garden and they will help you debug your garden
19. Some butterflies are devils in disguises as their larvae will eat up your vegetables
20. It takes time to re-establish the small ecosystem in an area coming out of monoculture
21. Growing food is not a new idea. There are many helpful people out there who will help you if you dare to ask.
22. You’ll never be entirely self-sufficient. You’ll always be dependent on the sun. The goal is to have fun and be happy.

Add your best tip in the comments section below.

Photo by foxypar4.

Soil

Garlic needs plenty of sun and rich soil with pH 6.5 to 7.0. Lots of organic matter is preferred. It’s good to dig in green manure and dig the soil down to 30 cm (12 inch).

Planting

It is possible to plant garlic in early spring, but it’s not recommended since the soil is difficult to work with at this time. Plant in the fall, maybe even after the first frost has arrived. Take a garlic bulb and break it into cloves just before planting, so that the cloves don’t dry out. Each clove acts an individual seed. Plant the largest cloves of the bulbs in an upright position 2 cm (1 inch) below the surface. The plants need to be 10 cm (4 inch) apart and the space between rows should be 45 cm (18) apart.

Growing

Each clove grows into a bulb with up to 20 cloves. The root system of the cloves should have begun to develop before winter arrives, but the tops should not break the surface yet. Remove any weeds since garlic have a hard time competing with weeds. Garlic goes dormant over the winter and is not harmed by frost or snow.

Harvest

It’s time to harvest when the leaves goes brown and die away. Stop watering a few weeks before harvest. It takes 10 months from planting garlic until they’re ready to be harvested.

Storage

Garlic is best stored in a cool and dry place. Hang the bulbs to dry for a week and then brush off the dirt. The temperature should be around 10 deg C. (50 deg. F) for storage.

Not all insects and animals in your garden are out to get you and your vegetables. Of course it’s annoying to have your plants eaten by caterpillars or infested with worms and borers, or if you get bitten by mosquitoes, but this is where you’ll get help from the beneficial animals. Take a look at the left column and be thankful for all the policing that goes on behind the scenes, when you have these in your garden:

Beneficial animal	Attacks
Bats	Bugs
Birds	Beetles
	Bugs
	Flies
	Moths
Dragonflies	Mosquitoes
Anisoptera
Photo by Krikit ♥.
Frogs	Flies
	Flying insects
	Moths
Green Lacewing	Aphids
and larvae	Bugs
Neuroptera	Eggs
Photo by Anauxite.	Leafhoppers
	Mealybugs
	Mites
	Red Mites
	Scale insects
	Some caterpillars
	Some moth
	Spider-mites
	Thrips
	Whiteflies
Hoverfly	Aphids
Syrphidae	Fruit tree spider-mites
Photo by tanakawho.	Green Flies
	Small Caterpillars
Ladybug	Aphids (up to 100 in one day)
Coccinellidae	Mealybugs
Photo by joka2000(busy).	Mites
	Scale insects
	Small caterpillars
	Small soft-bodied insects
	Spider-mites
	Whiteflies
Leafminer Parasite	Leafminer larvae
Diglyphus isaea
Mealybug Destroyer	All species of mealybug
Cryptolaemus montrouzieri	Aphids
	Soft scale
Minute Pirate Bug	Aphids
Orius	Corn Earworm
	Leafhoppers
	Scale insects
	Small caterpillars
	Spider-mites
	Thrips
Parasite Wasp	Aphids
Trichogramma	Armyworm
	Cabbage looper
	Cabbage worm
	Codling moth
	Corn borer
	Corn earworm
	Cut worm
	Leaf roller
	Moth eggs
	Tomato hornworm
Predatory Mites	Pest Mites
Stethorus punctillum	Thrips
Rove Beetles	Aphids
Staphylinidae	Cabbage Maggots
Photo by dhobern.	Onion Maggots
	Root Maggot
	Slug eggs
	Snail eggs
	Springtails
Soldier Beetles	Aphids
Cantharidae	Caterpillars
Photo by Anauxite.	Cicadas
	Corn Rootworms
	Cucumber Beetles
Spiders	Grasshopper eggs
Spined Soldier Bug	> 100 different insect pests
Podisus maculiventris	Cabbage Loopers
	Colorado Potato Beetles (larvae)
	Corn Earworms
	Flea Beetles
	Sawflies
	Tent Caterpillars
Tachinid Flies	Armyworms
Photo by Gilles Gonthier.	Caterpillars
	Cornborers
	Cutworms
	Stinkbugs
Thrips Predator	Mites
Amblyseius cucumeris	Thrips
Tiger Beetles	Soil-dwelling larvae
Cicindelinae
Photo by .Larry Page.
Yellow Jackets	Caterpillars
Photo by audreyjm529.	Fly larvae
	Grasshopper larvae

Photo by KirrilyRobert.

Some plants will naturally attract a certain kind of insect. Other plants will deter insects. You can use these relationships between insects and plants to build a natural defence around your crops. Take a look at the table below. If we look at growing cucumbers as an example we find radish in the helpers column, since radish will deter cucumber beetles. So when you grow radish around cucumbers, you have a better chance of keeping your cucumbers free from pests. Go through the list to see if you can apply some of the rules or relationships to your current garden layout:

If you find caterpillars on your vegetables that look like these you’re most likely dealing with the Large White butterfly:

Photo by Lazarus Churchyard.

It’s a quite common butterfly in Europe but pay attention if you see any of these hovering around your precious rows of radish or cole crops:

Photo by jpockele.

Colourful flowers with nectar attract the adult butterflies. They emerge in April and May and one butterfly lays between 20 to 100 small yellow eggs, that hatches into caterpillars in about 2 weeks. The first generation pupates in June and the second in July.

Fortunately there are a couple of natural enemies who will help save your vegetables. The parasitic wasp called Apanteles glomeratus lays its eggs inside the caterpillars which will eventually be eaten from the inside and die. Birds like Starlings will also try to keep a natural balance, so it’s a good thing to put up nesting boxes for insectivorous birds.

You can also do some manual regulation by crushing the caterpillars with your fingers. Do this in July to keep their numbers down. If you find infected old dead caterpillars just leave them where they are. They will act as a breeding ground for more caterpillar parasites.

Photo by Robert Couse-Baker.

Soil

Parsnips like to grow in full sun, but a bit shade is also okay. The soil needs to be around pH 6.5. Avoid adding nitrogen and use only well composted material, or else the parsnips will easily fork. They will also fork if there are stones in the soil, and they should be removed. The soil needs to be dug down to 30 cm (12 inch) since the roots go far down. I’ve had some trouble with wireworms, so remember to pick them up when digging if you convert your lawn into vegetable beds. It’s beneficial to grow garlic, onions, peas, potatoes and radish in the same bed as companion plants for parsnip.

Seeds

Parsnip seeds don’t store well, so you need to use fresh seeds not older than a year. Sow in early spring in calm weather or else the seeds will easily blow away in the wind because they are light.

Growing

When the soil temperature is around 10 deg. C (50 deg. F) the seeds will germinate after 3 to 4 weeks in the ground. After the small plants have reached a height of 5 cm (2 inch) thin the rows so that the plants are 20 cm (8 inch) apart. Parsnips need 3 cm (1 inch) of water each week during the summer. Hand pick any caterpillars who decide to eat your crop.

Harvest

Parsnip is often called a winter vegetable due to the fact that they are able to survive winter in the ground. If they are left outside when the frost arrives the starch inside them will turn into sugar and the taste improves. You can start harvesting parsnip in the middle of autumn or as late as January. Harvest before any new leaves start growing or the texture of the roots starts to degrade.

Storage

Cut off the leaves and throw them on the compost heap. Parsnips are best stored in dry sand in wooden boxes in a cool and dry place.

There are a couple of good reason to install Debian on your small NSLU2 computer. Although it’s not exactly the Debian version you would use on your desktop PC it smells a lot like it. The file system structure is there, and if you’re used to Linux you’ll know your way around right after installation is complete. Also, ‘apt-get’ is available to you making it easy to install new programs on your small computer.

I’ve used a 4 GB USB flash memory stick as disk for the installation. This is not as reliable in the long run compared to a harddrive. Flash memory allows only a limited number of write operations to the disk, but it’ll be sufficient for now. The worst thing that could happen is that I’ll over-water my garden if my water hose valve is stuck open, but the system will be slow so I’ll probably catch the error in time. Wait until the NSLU2 has been upgraded with the Debian installer before plugging in the USB stick.

The NSLU2 comes with an IP address set to 192.168.1.77. Connect it to a local area network in this range or change the IP address of your desktop PC so you’ll be able to communicate with it. Make sure there are no other devices on your network with this IP address.

The NSLU2 is running a webserver on 192.168.1.77 when you first power it up. I logged in with username ‘admin’ and password ‘admin’ and changed the IP address to 192.168.1.76 because I already had a unit with the address 192.168.1.77. And then I immediately lost the connection when I pressed ‘Save’ You must log in again using the new IP address 192.168.1.76. I typed in the Internet gateway address, and the address of DNS servers. These addresses will be used by the upcoming Debian installation.

We need a hacked version of the Debian installer from the Internet to put on the NSLU2. Search Google for ‘Debian NSLU2 install’. What you need is a file called di-nslu2.bin around 8 MB in size. It came in a .zip-file called ‘debian-armel-5.0.zip’ last time I did an install. Using the web server interface of the NSLU2 you need to upgrade it with this 8 MB .bin-file.

After an automatic reboot plug in the USB memory stick. The NSLU2 is now running a Debian install program and will need access to the Internet to download and install software automatically. And this is were things usually gets chaotic for me, but after several attempts I usually get Debian installed. Here are some ideas to try if it’s not working in the first attempt:

• Try different USB memory sticks
• Remove any data or partitions from memory stick using desktop PC
• Manual partitioning vs. guided partitioning
• Try different Debian software mirrors

There are many parameters that will different from system to system, but with persistence and a little luck it should be possible to get it up and running. It’s definitely worth the sweat, having your own 5 watts always ON logging server to give you every detail about your garden.

Any problems with this? Is there something I should try to explain in more detail? Please leave a comment.