I’m a huge fan of cheesy 1950s monster movies.
The image above sends me way back to the Saturday morning Creature Features that I loved as a kid. Check out the trailer for this fine piece of cinema:
I love how pretty much the entire movie is encapsulated in less than two minutes.
In truth, the praying mantis isn’t a monster. Well, I guess it sort’a is, as the female kills then eats the male after breeding (sounds like my ex-wife… I barely escaped. Okay, that’s mean; she didn’t really try to eat me).
But these predatory attributes can benefit your garden when it comes to natural pest control. Praying mantises have quite an appetite. They eat aphids, crickets, flies, grasshoppers, moths, each other . . .You get the picture.
Unfortunately, they also eat insects that are good for your garden, so you want to be careful that they don’t get out of control. It’s easy to go overboard as you can purchase entire cases of praying mantis eggs in various garden and pest control stores.
Personally, I’m just glad that they aren’t anywhere near the size of that monster in the movie. Imagine what life would be like trying to avoid those things!
picture source
by John Barker
