There are just shy of a million insect species in the world, and sometimes I think that the majority of them inhabit my garden.  I'm constantly stumbling across new forms --- brilliant, metallic beetles, soft-bodied grubs, fantastical fliers.  As with last week's earthworms, I'm stuck with a conundrum --- should I squish them or love them?

Last year, our single book purchase was Garden Insects of North America, a 656 page tome with nearly half those pages full of color photos.  As the book's wisdom slowly starts percolating into my thought processes, I'm realizing that my best bet is to learn the bad bugs and assume everyone else is either benign or actively beneficial.

This week, I'm going to point out the four worst insects plaguing our garden right this instant.  Of course, the insect fauna of the garden changes with the seasons, so there will be new insects to learn throughout the year.  If I remember, I'll post about the new bad bugs as I cruise the garden over the weeks to come.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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