Insects of the Garden

A little over a couple of weeks ago, I posted some photos of an unknown bug that was spotted in the garden. Since that time, I was able to identify this crawling creature as a Katydid, or bush cricket in common terms. Having sparked my interest, I was curious to see how many insects I could photograph in one sitting. Here's the results:



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Above you can see an adult Katydid, while a juvenile can be seen below. Having never dealt with these pests before, I really had to do some research. As it turns out, these creatures are commonly known as bush crickets, and are best known for eating large amounts of foliage. Once the pictures were taken, these pests were picked from the plants and thrown over the balcony. Hopefully they won't return!

Another pest that I've recently come across are aphids. Their numbers have been relatively small, so control has been very easy, but I still don't appreciate their arrival! So far, the only plants that seem to attract these pests are the Fatalii Chili Plants and the tomatoes.


To the left is what I suspect to be a flying aphid, whereas to the right are more common looking aphids on a Fatalii Chili Pepper plant.

I only found one of these brown creatures in the garden. I'm leaning towards a flying beetle of some sort, but I'm not quite sure. Anyhow, with only one spotted, it seems to me as if this guy was just a passer-by.

Alright, with the plant damaging pests out of the way, let's dive into the predatory cleanup crew! Above is some sort of pincer bug, while below are a couple different spiders.

Common garden spider on the underside of a tomato leaf. 

My favorite, the jumping spider!