Country Living Skills

We saw one of the male praying mantises again today, and it has grown quite a bit ! We think it grew so fat on our Japanese beetles for they have disappeared completely out of our garden already. Well, have a look at the pictures if you like… I rotated two of them, and you know what, these insects look rather otherworldly if you rotate the picture.

If you are plagued by aphids on your flowers, you can solve your little problem by cutting banana peel into small bits and spread them among your flowers or wherever the aphids are.

If you want to get rid of ants in your garden, dry the banana peel, then grind and distribute it. Ants will carry it to their nests, but because banana peel is high in potassium the nest will die out as ants die when they eat it. Flowers and vegetables on the other hand will welcome the extra potassium in the soil.

Incidentally: Praying mantises like ants, too. Here is proof.  Click the picture for a larger view.

There are not only unwelcome critters in the garden, but also very welcome guests and residents. Beside the many birds that visit our garden regularly, we now have a new resident: a praying mantis !

Since they are notorious for their voracious appetite, we hope that our little friend will get fat on flee beetle, potato beetle and later in the year, Japanese beetle, and then leave many egg sacks behind so that next year, a whole bunch of praying mantises will hopefully live and prey on bugs in our garden area.