The Master Gardeners of Mercer County are demonstrating the importance of insects to everyday life through its 17th annual Insect Festival on Sept. 14.
The Master Gardeners of Mercer County are part of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension, which promotes enhancing and protecting environmental resources. The festival, which will be dubbed “Remember Bugs,” this year, is taking place on the grounds of the Mercer Educational Gardens in Pennington from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
“’Remember Bugs’ has to do with bugs that are really at risk. Some people refer to today as an insect apocalypse,” said Patricia Frawley, president of Master Gardeners of Mercer County. “There are fewer bugs than there were years ago. The use of insecticide and pesticides has certainly put a lot of the insect population at risk, the least of which is bees.”
She said bees are one of the featured insects at the Insect Festival, this year.
“We want people to think about insects and care for them. We do not want people to squash them because they are around them,” she said. “A lot of insects are beneficial and are doing a good job. We need them to stay alive – that is what is behind the theme of this festival.”
Some of the amusements on the day of the festival include a puppet show, scavenger hunt and metamorphosis game.
“Metamorphosis is basically a game where people see the insects in their beginning stages and try to guess which little insect matches the big insect. It is really relevant for butterflies,” Frawley said. “Metamorphosis is change.”
Another featured event, that is returning this year, is the “Insect Olympics.”
“We created this a few years ago, we wanted children to realize how hard bugs work,” Frawley said. “For example, some children will pretend to be a dung beetle and push weight. Dung beetles push many times their own weight. Grasshoppers are another one on the day. Grasshoppers leap incredibly far, so the children try to leap as far as a grasshopper in the Olympic game.”
A new addition this year to the festival is a display of carnivorous plants.
“We have never done this before. We will have demonstrations with plants and hand puppets,” Frawley said. “A Venus Flytrap is the most common one and we also include bog plants. They will be there for children and adults to see the role these plants play in being very selective in what they eat and how they eat.”
The Master Gardeners of Mercer County restored a meadow on the grounds of the Mercer Educational Gardens in Pennington, several years ago, and now use the land as a spot for the festival’s insect catch and release program.
“People are asked to take a butterfly net and catch an insect and then we help them identify what the insect is; after that we release the insect,” she said.
According the officials, the Insect Festival is the Master Gardeners of Mercer County largest educational event for the public.
“We have regarded this festival as one of the most important things we do. People have to realize that insects are here to help,” Frawley said. “We have something for everyone at this festival. We always have more adults than children. This is so instructional and so much fun that we get a lot of people coming back every year. A lot of them bring new people to the festival.”
For more information about the Insect Festival, visit the www.mgofmc.org.
