DOH!

geeme

geeme

There were two things I did differently at the end of the grow season last year from my usual approach. The first I posted about in my status update - I didn't clean out the pots I grew chiles in when the seasoned wound down, and instead cleaned them out just the other day. In the process I found a bunch of red wigglers had made their homes in the soil, so made a note to self: wait until Spring to clean the pots out from now on. Good stuff.
 
But the second…. I also did not prune down my russian sage plants until just a few weeks ago. In the process of pruning I found two things attached to a couple branches. I wasn't sure what they were - either a cocoon or an egg sac of some sort. They were fairly high up on the branches and I was cutting below them, so at a minimum I was going to cut the branches down anyway. Although I did not know what they were, I was a bit paranoid that they would turn out to be either a big something or a lot of little somethings that might go after my chile plants, so I tossed them in the bag with the branches and sent them merrily to the trash. Also, we have a TON of buzzy things around here - several types of bees, wasps, yellow jackets, you name it, and I am rather allergic to most of them. So my paranoia was understandable. But ….
 
A gardening catalog came in the mail about a week ago. My son decided to flip through it and got this kind of surprised look on his face and said "oh man, mom - you mean you got all those ladybugs for the aphids when you could have gotten praying matises instead???" I looked at him quizzically and said I didn't know if praying matises ate aphids or not or if buglogical sold them. We looked at the buglogical.com site and saw, sure enough, they do sell praying mantis egg sacs. Ok… good info to store in the noggin. That was last week. It wasn't until today that I made a possible connection to the things I found on the russian sage a few weeks ago. Uh oh…. I didn't actually know what mantis egg sacs looked like, but thought I should look them up. Yep… those "things" stuck to the russian sage branches look extremely like praying matis egg sacs. 
DOH!
 
So I asked my son if he had ever seen praying matises here in northern OH, as I hadn't. Yep. ….  :banghead:
 
Now you've read my pathetic (and kind of embarrassing) little tale. Any chance any of you know if there is some other "thing" that creates something that looks very similar to praying mantis egg sacs? Or am I doomed to regret the day I trashed those?   :mope:  Le sigh!
 
Well in the chance that they were mantis sacs, they likely weren't the last ones you'll find. There are a lot of insects that make egg sacs like that though, not just praying mantises.
 
i was raised on a farm in south western Ontario, a 300 mile drive or 150 mile straight line over lake erie from Ohio and we use to get praying mantis on the farm. we use to get walking sticks too but of course walking sticks don't eat aphids, mice, snakes, fish or small birds!!...................like praying mantis.
 
     I found a mantis egg sac on one of my cacti that I brought in for the winter this year. I tossed it under the assumption that they weren't viable anymore. Does anybody know how long mantis eggs take to hatch? Do they overwinter and then hatch in spring, or what?
 
I get quite a lot of praying mantis down here, and although i do think they eat the odd aphid, I think ladybugs or the aphidius parasitic wasps are more effective.
Praying matis will eat all bugs, not just pest insects, and if there is any other bugs around I think the praying mantis will eat those before the aphids.
Not sure if you can get them there but the parasitic wasps are cool! they lay an egg in the aphid which kills the aphid and out of the aphid comes another wasp to infest more aphids  :party:
wasp-aphid-evolution.jpg
 
i love the parasitic wasps. so you think me, being in a frozen tundra of the universe, what bugs do i get, for sure aphids...but... no shit i get parasitic wasps. they scurry around my plants and attack aphids, which are plentiful. they look like little wasps but so fragile and small. they are just cool and completely control aphids and are around all winter......unlike ladybugs. i brought some ladybugs into the house as winter thaw was happening and all the ladybugs would do is race up and down my south exposed window looking for heat from the sun, even though aphids were plentiful. not the parasitic wasps all they wanted was to stick it to the aphids!
 
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