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Guest: Dr. Ken Fry
Big Idea:
Big Idea: “I guess the word of the day would be biodiversity and that is having an abundance of different kinds of plants: different colours, different times of flowering, different sizes and statures, different fragrances. And that way you have all the different kinds of resources that are necessary for a rich, happy biodiverse garden.”
Topic Today:
Join in and learn about some of the bugs we love to hate and some of the solutions to pests in our garden. Ken answers Donna’s specific insect questions and offers ideas for a well-rounded garden.”Tiny flowers are like charging stations for beneficial insects,” says Ken as he encourages us to build varied gardens with water and plenty of variety in the plants. “If you want good predators and parasitoids then the shallower flowers are the ones that are the most beneficial.”
Ken also discourages us from buying Lady Beetles: “They’re not produced in a factory, shall we say, or reared in an insectary. They’re actually harvested, unsustainably, from the wild in California, Utah and other places. So they go and collect them from their overwintering sites, package them up, ship them out….. you buy a container of a hundred lady beetles, and you’re lucky if a couple of them stick around because all the rest have flown the coop…. as an instinctive response to waking up from overwintering. ”
Books: Garden Bugs of Alberta, Lone Pine Press (https://books.google.ca/books/about/Garden_Bugs_of_Alberta.html?id=ZfzMAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y)
Resources Mentioned: Dr. Ken Fry teaches at Olds College in Alberta but has experience beyond his research and teaching background. For more information about Dr. Kenneth Fry go to LinkedIn or to the Olds College website.
Web site: https://www.oldscollege.ca/
