Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The Clemson Student Organic Farm has small lagoons in front of their winter greenhouses to provide extra warmth for those structures but what positive spinoffs in summer. dragonflies perch on cattails devouring captured insects. And toads and live and breed in these simple water features. Guess what frogs and toads eat – insects! These amphibians hop all through the garden looking for food and with their long tongues can zap a plant eating beetle or stink bug in the blink of an eye. Since I have problems with slugs. Imagine my delight to find a utube video titled fatty the toad eats a slug. So my new garden project is to create a lagoon of my own, complete with mosquito fish to reduce the mosquito population, serve as a magnet for those beautiful and beneficial dragonflies, and provide a home for a whole chorus of frogs and toads.
Amanda McNulty is a Clemson University Extension Horticulture agent and the host of South Carolina ETV’s Making It Grow! gardening program. She studied horticulture at Clemson University as a non-traditional student. “I’m so fortunate that my early attempts at getting a degree got side tracked as I’m a lot better at getting dirty in the garden than practicing diplomacy!” McNulty also studied at South Carolina State University and earned a graduate degree in teaching there.