I thought I’d give a nod to Halloween since it’s right around the corner, and talk about the web-weavers that inhabit the garden.

This summer our place was a veritable playground for spiders—you know, the enormous orb spiders that create their webs in places where you don’t notice until you reach down and scream but in reality they were far from scary. Lots of these spiders mean they’re eating potential pests.

I think we saw our first one in July, and she was perched in the corner of the garage. The boys watched with a combination of fascination and horror. They know the story of Charlotte’s Web, where the spider is the heroine, but this one was just so BIG. Then more and more of them starting show up. I’ve never seen this many in the garden.

Black and Yellow Agriope

Our season visitors are the black and yellow Argiope variety. Argiope spiders are striking. The females can grow to 1 inches in diameter with a rounded body. From what I read they have 3 claws on each leg, but frankly, Im not going to get close enough to check.

Agriope spiders spin a new web every day after eating their previous endeavor from the day before (It doesnt quite sound like yummy cotton candy, does it?). They prefer sunny spots out of the wind, which is a bit of a challenge around here. We’ve found them under the soffit of the house; tucked in the raspberries, strung across the tomatoes and woven in place in the oregano.

At first I thought it was the same one changing locations, but soon noticed they were distinctly different. I think we had a least a half dozen in the main garden and a couple in the raspberry patch in the garden on the east side of the house.

They eat pretty much anything thatll fly into their web, including honey bees, but I still value them in the garden. I love it that they like grasshoppers. The boys were fascinated watching my husband toss unlucky hoppers into the web. (After a horrible year battling these devastating pests, I was more than happy to feed the spider.) It took a few attempts because the grasshoppers were rather large and often tore through the web.

Attract Beneficial Spiders

To encourage spiders to take up residence in your garden, you have to keep them safe from pesticides. If you spray or dust with an insecticide, it will kill them, as well as the ones you’re trying to eliminate. The second thing you can do is grow tall plants. The shortest plant the spiders chose was the oregano, which was still 18 inches tall. Most of them hung around the 3-4 ft. high mark. They spread webs along the greenhouse and nearby plants, as well as through the strong stalks of the raspberries and dense cover of the flopped over tomatoes.

Whats fascinating is the female spiders lay their eggs and contain them in a papery sack. Like Charlottes Web, she will die afterwards. The eggs hatch before winter, but the baby spiders stay in their protective enclosure until this spring. Theyll leave in the spring and start the process again. Im looking forward to having them back!