Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Frogs and Toads


I’ve been doing some research on how frogs and toads benefit the garden.

According to Frogs by Dan Greenberg – Benchmark Books 2001: “The American toad is indeed a voracious eater of garden pests. One study estimated that 88 percent of the toad’s diet consisted of insects that were harmful to garden plants, including mosquitoes, locusts, grasshoppers, snails, slugs and hairy caterpillars.”

I’m lucky because there are a lot of American toads in the neighbor’s pond. I love to listen to the trill on a warm spring evening. You can listen to the cacophony here: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/eek/critter/amphibian/toadvoc.htm About 100 feet of vegetative growth separates our deck from the pond reducing the toads love song to pleasant background music.

I plan to add a few toad houses to my garden next summer. You can find some ideas here:
http://www.wildlifehc.org/documents/hoptoad/toadabodeenirch.pdf or here http://entertainment.kaboose.com/gardening-plants-projects.html

Why are frogs so happy? Because they eat what bugs them.

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