Good Bugs for Your Garden

by Allison Mia Starcher

Anyone who gardens knows how snails, aphids, scale insects, and caterpillars can damage vegetables, flowers, shrubs, and trees. But not many of us know that ground beetles eat caterpillars, not plants; that dragonflies feed on mosquitoes; that parasitic wasps prey on tomato hornworms. In this delightful guide to the world of beneficial insects, Starcher, an artist and avid gardener, shows us how to identify the "good guys" and encourage them to reside in our gardens. "Altogether delightful."--Newark Star-Ledger; "A fact-filled, charmingly illustrated guide."--American Bookseller. A GARDEN BOOK CLUB selection.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Nature

72 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 1995

Reviews

[Twofrontteethstillcrooked · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the only time of year I even think about being outside and doing gardeny things, and only because it isn't sunny and 97F at present. This book's illustrations are very cute, as befits good little buddy bugs and a few stinkers.

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

A healthy garden is a balanced ecosystem. The more good bugs you have, the less bad bugs you'll have - and then you won't have to use any pesticides.

Loved the illustrations! This book will be useful for my kids too, as they will be helping me be sleuths in our garden this year to try and attract as many beneficial insects as possible to our brand new garden plot. I'll be using this book with them to help identify the bugs we find.

As a general rule it seems the best things to attract good bugs are:

1.) Avoiding monoculture (planting lots of one thing) as this makes your garden vulnerable.
2.) You want to be intermixing annual and perennial plantings. Surround and intersperse veggie plantings with perennial flowers and herbs.
3.) Keep things like wood mulch, stone paths, small water gardens to attract more variety of beneficial insects.
4.) Think flowers that have many small heads and produce a lot of nectar - like Cosmos, Dill, Cilantro, Sweet Asylum.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book! It is perfect for the Elementary age child who wants to learn more about gardening and bugs. It is written in a journal type format, that give a hand drawn picture of each bug, where they live, and what they do for the garden. It doesn't have a lot of bugs, just enough not to overwhelm a child.

[Mathew Carruthers]

Very good info

I learned a lot in the short time it took me to read this book - I was aware of a few beneficial insects and am always looking out for bees, earthworms, ladybugs, and the occasional praying mantis, but there are so many more! The illustrations will be a great help in identifying these friends of the garden in the future.

[Lenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations, but I wish that it gave more details on how to attract the bugs into your garden. It would have also been nice to see what bugs are harmful to the garden and why.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tiny little book with art quality illustrations is a surprisingly good resource for the gardener. Despite its petite size and illustrations, this is not a children's book as suggested by some reviewers. The text is too complex for children and they would have no patience for the level of detail. My complaints are two fold. The first is that while the complex page layouts are beautiful, they make it extremely difficult to use as a reference book. The second is that the author makes no mention of harmful bugs or rather harmful bugs that might look like the beneficial ones. Alas, I have not yet found the perfect guide to beneficial bugs.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great intro do looking for insects in your garden and not just wanting to kill them. Ms. Starcher focuses on the interaction of insects and how the "good bugs" help to combat the "bad bugs". There are wonderful illustrations throughout the book along with snippets of information about each general group of insects. A very good book.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent primer on garden insect ecology. Each page has a general illustration of the critter as well as average size, and basic information on life cycle, preferred prey at the different stages of life, how to attract them, and how to find evidence that they may already be there. She only includes the most relevant information in an easy to digest manner.

[Glen U · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute little informative book that would be handy for the gardening adult or the budding young novice gardener. Brightly illustrated, not a scientific tome but entertaining and you can learn some stuff for the garden. Good read.

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book’s illustrations are adorable and I literally was looking for a book like this when it peeked out from my library’s shelves.

Love the tidbits and facts about each bug and am going to purchased this lovely book asap.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am both better educated and disturbed at these tiny creatures. Delightful illustrations that at once intrigued me and made my skin crawl. Learn to like bugs I have not.

[Tim Darst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helped me to plan what I want to do in 2020 to help my garden control pests and increase food production.

[Candace · Rating 5 out of 5]

The drawings are beautiful if you enjoy botanical art.

[Lynne Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute little read about beneficial bugs for your gardens. Beautifully illustrated, it's a great beginner's guide to learning how to fight pests in your garden the natural way.

[Jessica Lietzke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice illustrations and tidy information - not too much, just what you need to know about the bug. Short book that’s nice to have on hand as a reference throughout the growing season.

[Aprille Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous info and illustrations. I got to be friends with Allison after hearing her speak at a garden society meeting.

[CFAITC]

Pocket-sized hardcover book is full of illustrations of "good bugs." Each figure is surrounded by important facts, including size, eating habits, and life cycles.