Read em and weep all you aphids, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, black flied, ticks, cabbage loopers, grasshoppers and crickets! :)

That is 9, count em, 9 praying mantis egg pods in our little garden ready to unleash an army of nymphs to protect our 2024 crops!

I was out taking some hard wood cuttings of apple, elderberry, blueberry, goji berry and blackberry yesterday and without even looking that hard I counted 9 praying mantis egg pods in our little urban suburban garden.

This is one of the reasons having tall brush/grass present in your yard is beneficial and why I leave the standing dead flower stalks from things like our Echinacea, Amaranth, Cannabis and Sunflower overwinter as not only do the seeds feed the song birds but the stalks are also often used by mantis to place their eggs for next year.

Here in southern Ontario, creating ideal habitat for alpha predators of the insect world such as praying mantis allows me to forge an alliance with a vigilant garden defender mitigating the herbivore insect pressure on my leafy greens and veggie crops.

Such are the blessings we receive when we align our garden with ecological diversity (rather than attempting to impose a grass monoculture on it).