Now that summer is nearly here, the toads are emerging from their lairs and many of my evenings are spent chasing them around so I can pick them up and pet them. (Meanwhile, Shadow Jack trudges stolidly behind, wondering how he ever wound up saddled with a lunatic who pets toads. But I digress.)

In addition to being cute, toads are also a fantastic natural pest control for the garden. I like to encourage organic, pesticide-free gardening, so here are some gothy creatures to help keep out the bad bugs:

Toads eat all kinds of insects, grubs, and slugs, and they’re supposed to be good luck. Provide them with some water to drink and to lay their eggs (it doesn’t have to be a pond; anything that doesn’t dry out will do). Give them shelter, both in the form of rock piles and vegetation where they can hide and a cool, damp “toad abode” where they can get out of the sun and away from predators (you can buy elaborate toad houses, but a clay pot turned on its side and halfway buried in the ground is fine). Avoid spraying pesticides or other harsh chemicals; toads and frogs are very susceptible to poisoning. Keep cats under control to prevent them from snacking on toads (both for the toad’s sake and the cat’s; some toads are poisonous).

Lizards eat a variety of insects and can be attracted by giving them places to hide (such as a rock pile or a stack of logs), a shallow water source near the ground, and some flat rocks to sun on.

Snakes will be attracted by the same conditions that lizards like. Although they might eat helpful species like lizards and toads, they also eat rodents. (I think the tradeoff is worth it; there’s nothing that ticks me off more than finding a mouse’s nest in a basement storage box, and I love seeing the occasional shed skin that lets me know our snakes are on patrol.) It should go without saying that you shouldn’t try to pick up a wild snake, and make sure children and pets won’t be bitten.

Bats are nonpareil bug-eaters, and nothing could be gothier. I’ve gone into detail about attracting bats here.

Dragonflies are wonderful predators and like to snack on mosquitoes so much that they’re sometimes called “Mosquito Hawks.” (If you want a gothy tie-in, they’re also called “Devil’s Darning Needles,” and legend has it that they can swoop down and sew your mouth shut. How creepy is that?) You can attract them by giving them a water source (such as a birdbath) and providing perches for them to rest on: A few three-foot wooden stakes, placed six feet apart in the garden, makes them happy. Also avoid using bug zappers, since they’re fairly worthless for mosquitoes but will kill dragonflies and other beneficial bugs.

Spiders are another excellent predator. Give them shelter by covering bare dirt in your garden with a mulch of dead leaves or grass clippings, thick enough to shade the soil surface. Avoid pesticides, and try not to blunder through their webs.

Praying Mantises (that plural should technically be “Mantidae,” but that just looks too pedantic) are awesomely alien-looking and will eat any bug they can get their spiky little mitts on. As with other insect helpers, avoid pesticides and give them places to hide; a semi-wild part of the garden is perfect. (This has the added benefit of allowing you to say with a straight face, “I can’t weed! I’m leaving it like that for the beneficial wildlife!”) You can buy mantis egg cases in many nurseries (making them hired killers, I guess), and the hatchlings will scatter throughout the yard. Mini-mantises are adorably weird-looking.

Decollate Snails are lovely snails that eat other snails and slugs, so not only do you have a witch’s brew-worthy creature in your garden, it’s a cannibal. Awesome. Give them mulch to hide in and–yet again!–avoid pesticides. (Note that they also eat beneficial worms, so there’s a tradeoff involved; if you don’t have a huge snail problem they’re probably not worth it.)

Birds aren’t terribly gothic but their bug-eating prowess certainly makes them worth encouraging. Provide them with safe places to nest and a water source, and make up for their lack of gothiness by choosing spooky designs for their birdhouses and birdbaths. This is a neat birdbath (and this one is phenomenal, but I shudder to guess the price), and birdhouses that look like castles are fairly common, such as this or these whimsical examples. (You can also decorate your own; BHG has instructions for one that’s meant as a Halloween decoration, but you could repurpose it for outside use.)

Miscellaneous Crawly Things include ladybugs, ambush bugs, lacewings, robber flies, assassin bugs, ground beetles, predatory wasps, and a host of other useful creatures. To encourage good bugs, give them a water source (even a small bowl will do) and change the water regularly. Grow plants with small blossoms like catnip, sweet alyssum, yarrow, and dill, since many predatory insects feed on the flowers’ nectar between attacks on pests (dill is an especially good choice, as its tall feathery fronds make good hiding places). Beneficial insects also tend to like plants in the cabbage, carrot, and sunflower family. Control ants, which may prevent predators from eating aphids (and big ants such as fire ants can also threaten small toads and other beneficial wildlife). And, once again, DON’T use insecticides; you’ll kill off the good bugs as well as the bad ones, and once their natural enemies are gone the pest populations may become more of a problem than they were before you sprayed.

Encouraging beneficial wildlife in the garden is easy, good for the environment, and takes much less effort than trying to control pests with chemicals. It also gives you the added benefit of gothy wildlife sightings, which is always a bit of a thrill. Give it a try; you may wind up chasing around toads and petting them too.