Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Calling in the good guys...

Our praying mantis order arrived today!!

The eggs were much bigger than I thought they'd be. If you click on this photo, you can read the instructions that came with them.


We took them right outside and found a nice, sheltered bush to wire them into...can you see them?


Here's a close up. I used copper wire to securely attach them to the branches of this bush in filtered sunlight...just as the instructions said. These bushes are right beside our garden, so I'm hoping as they hatch they'll stay near and begin eating aphids and potato bugs!


We'll be keeping a close eye on these and with any luck we'll be able to see some of the babies hatching out of the egg. I'll keep you updated!

3 comments:

kaiwat said...

Seeing these pics remind me that as a small kid, we once hatched mantises in school. I recognize the eggs. I might have to splurge. The thought of those nasty cucumber beetles being eaten up is TOO tempting!

Lynn said...

Where did you order these from?

Dr. White said...

Lynn, I ordered them off of Amazon from Hirt's Gardens (they also have their own website www.hirts.com). I used my SwagBucks and got mine for FREE!!! I <3 SwagBucks...if you haven't started Swagging, check out my sidebar to get started! I almost always trade mine in for Amazon.com giftcards and get to order free stuff every month!