Earthworm

The earthworm is reddish-grey in color and can be a few inches long. As the earthworm burrows, it consumes soil and can eat up to one third its body weight in a day.

They are the garden’s best friend because they transport nutrients and minerals from below to the surface where the plants grow. Earthworms are a source of food for numerous animals, like birds, rats, and toads, and are frequently used as an aid in composting.

Ladybugs

Ladybugs appear as half-spheres, tiny, spotted, round or oval-shaped domes. They have short legs and antennae. Their distinctive spots and attractive colors are meant to make them unappealing to predators. Ladybugs eat aphids, which are small bugs that cluster around plant stems and leaves and cause damage.

Butterfly

A butterfly has different stages in its life cycle, starting as an egg and hatching into a larva or caterpillar. During this time, they seek out areas with food plants. It then turns into a pupa during the resting stage and afterwards emerges as an adult butterfly. Adult butterflies feed on fluids such as nectar from flowers.

Bees

Bees live in colonies; there are three types of bees in each colony: the queen, the worker bees, and the drones. The worker bee and the queen bee are both female, but only the queen bee can reproduce. All drones are male. Bumblebees are beneficial to gardens because they pollinate crops and plants. Honeybees produce honey from pollen and nectar of the plants they pollinate. They store the honey in honeycombs in their nests, which they use to feed their young in colder months.

Ants

Like bees, ants live in colonies and there are three types: the queen, the female workers, and the males. An ant can lift 20 times its own body weight. They can help to aerate the soil through their natural tunnelling movements. However, their colonies can arise in the garden and damage the root system of a plant.

Praying Mantis

A praying mantis disguises itself well among plants with a body that resembles leaves and stems. They can turn their triangular heads up to 180 degrees in search of an insect to eat. They have excellent eyesight, and they can see up to 18 meters (60 feet) away. They are not dangerous creatures (at least not to the humans) and their average lifespan is around 12 months.

Tomato Hornworm

They are 3-4 inches long at full-size. A black "horn" projects from the rear of the caterpillar. Tomato hornworms are voracious, munching entire leaves, small stems, and even parts of immature fruit. While they are most commonly associated with tomatoes, hornworms are also common pests of eggplants, peppers, and potatoes. Most likely, you'll notice the damage before you notice the hornworms, because their color helps them blend in so well with the plant foliage.

Squash Bug

The squash bug is ½ inch long with a brown/grey body and flat back. They leave behind yellow dots that turn to brown on plant leaves. This is caused by the bug sucking out all the vital nutrients from the plant leaves, leaving the plant to slowly starve.

Aphid

Aphids can be identified as tiny, soft-bodied, pear shaped insects, which come in a rainbow of colours, green, yellow, black, grey, red, purple and brown. They appear in clusters or groups on the stems and young leaves of plants. The damage they do to plants includes mutations and stunted growth in the new foliage that often appear as curling in the leaves, and poor blooms on flowering plants.

Centipede

Centipedes have a flattened body with as many as thirty legs. They can grow up to two inches long. They eat insects, spiders and other small animals. The venom they use will paralyze their prey so that it cannot move.

Snail

Snails are considered a pest because they nibble on leafy greens, but otherwise will not harm the garden. Land snails have two pairs of tentacles, with eyes on the tips of the longest pair. They slide along on a single ‘foot’ while releasing a bed of low-friction mucus and require a humid or wet environment to avoid drying out.

Slugs

Slugs are snails without shells. They are found in and need a moist environment in order to survive. As with snails, slugs are also considered a pest because they nibble on leafy greens, perhaps more often than snails.

Earwig

Earwigs are nocturnal; they often hide in small, moist crevices during the day, and are active at night, feeding on a wide variety of insects and plants. Damage to foliage, flowers, and various crops is commonly blamed on earwigs. Earwigs have five molts in the year before they become adults. They have pincer forceps which they use to hold prey. They are omnivorous and actively hunt for food, eating arthropods, plants, and ripe fruit.

Spiders

Garden spiders are likely not dangerous and prefer sunny places amongst flowers to construct their webs.

Fruit Fly

Fruit flies are attracted to ripe and rotting produce. The reproductive potential of fruit flies is enormous; given the opportunity, they will lay about 500 eggs. The entire lifecycle from egg to adult can be completed in about a week.