Garden Bugs of Ontario: Gardening to Attract, Repel, and Control.

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

If you have a garden, then you have bugs and that is generally a good thing. Gardens depend on a plethora of diverse bug species to grow and thrive. The bad news is that not all bugs are good for your garden. What if you cannot tell a hairy cinch from a spittlebug? This handy field guide should help you sort friend from foe.

At the very front of the book is a “Quick Reference Guide” showing a detailed drawing of every bug mentioned in the book and the page number where you will find an in-depth write-up. The book starts off with a brief description of the part bugs play in our biosphere. It examines the three separate bug phyla: annelids, mollusca, and arthropoda (or worms, slugs, and bugs with exoskeletons, in layperson’s terms). The chapter finishes with an overview of how bugs can be harmful or helpful in the garden.

The rest of the book is species-by-species guide to the most common bugs found in Ontario. The chapters are divided into the basic bug types, including dragonflies, grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, true bugs, sucking insects, thrips, earwigs, lacewings, beetles, weevils, butterflies, maggots, flies, midges, mosquitoes, sawflies, ants, bees, wasps, and other bugs of garden interest. Each bug gets a large colour portrait, a brief write-up of its harmful or helpful habits, its size, locale, type of preferred habitat, its natural enemies, and what people do to control this creature.

A lot of text is just plain fascinating reading. The multicoloured ladybird beetle, for example, is generally considered a friend unless it experiences a population explosion, and then it is known to swarm by the tens of thousands inside human habitations and even bite people if disturbed.

Who knew what fantastic creatures lurked under yon nearby tomato patch? Like many other Lone Pine books, this volume comes with a sturdy cover and it will easily fit into a large pocket. If you are a gardener or just a nature nut, this book belongs in your library.