Good, Bad and Beautiful Bugs

We had our first major garden casualty - something, possibly a raccoon, ripped out Josie's squash plants. One is lost, though she replanted the others in hope of saving them. Deer tracks were also spotted in her garden.

We had some rain last night, but not enough to keep us out of the gardens. The young gardeners spent some time with Mr Marlin and Miss Chris looking for and identifying bugs - both good and bad. When bad bugs were spotted, like squash bugs, they were picked off and - squashed!


In this picture Drake's mom inspects Drake's plants, while Nate and Drake look on.

During class the young gardeners learned all about bugs: the stages of growth, about the parts of a bug and about bug mouthparts - chewing mouthparts like caterpillars or piercing-sucking like aphids and mosquitos. They learned that 98% of all bugs are beneficial.

Miss Chris showed slides of both good and bad bugs, which led to a lively discussion. Then the gardeners each drew a wanted poster of a bad bug. This is Laurel's cucumber beetle -