Encouraging+Insect+Diversity

=Encouraging Insect Diversity= Concepts taken from "Insects and Gardens: In Pursuit of a Garden Ecology" by Eric Grissell.

Beneficial Insects
Not all insects are pests. "Pests get to be pests when they teeter out of balance with their environment and do things we don't want them to do." (Grissell 204) In fact, in a well balanced garden, insects perform many necessary tasks.
 * 1) Decomposition: Death is a part of life. As our gardens grow they also are dying. Those dead bits, whether of plants or animals, need to decompose in order to return those nutrients into our soil, so our plants can access them. Fungi, bacteria, worms, and insects take care of this. Many of the beetles and ants we see are engaged in helping with decomposition.
 * 2) Improving Soil Structure: Worms and many insects burrow in the ground, which is great for gardeners, because they are tilling our soil.
 * 3) Pollination: Bees and some flies help pollinate our flowers, which then turn into delicious fruits and vegetables.
 * 4) Balance: Insects are necessary for gardens to thrive, and even if we wanted to eliminate them, we could not. There are simply too many, and they adapt too quickly. Therefore, we should encourage insect diversity in order to discourage any one insect from becoming to numerous and becoming a pest.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em
In the war of human vs. bug, bugs will always win. We are just one species, whereas there are millions of insect species. And that's not even counting spiders, centipedes, ticks, and mites, none of which are technically insects. We can only spend so much time in our gardens, whereas bugs have their whole lives to devote to inhabiting our vegetable plots. If we accept that we can't kill every bug in our garden, and that some are even a valuable part of our garden, we will have a more enjoyable gardening experience. These insects have been around for a very long time, and nature has its way of keeping things balanced. If one species is eating your tomatoes, it's likely another species will come along to eat whatever is eating your tomatoes. The best way to have this happen is to encourage a wide range of insects to come by having a wide variety of plants. There is an exception to this rule, which is invasive species. Invasive insects are new to our ecosystem, brought from overseas or elsewhere, and may not have many natural predators.