Thursday, May 04, 2006

Aphids and Lady Bugs

My garden is too wet to cultivate, plant, or repair any damage from the cows' party, but I could look and I found aphids (you should be able to see them on the picture) on what is left of my sugar snap peas. Yuk!!!! I also found a Lady Bug doing its job - eating the aphids. I garden organically and love to see a balanced eco-structure working in my garden.

Non-organic gardeners usually run for the Sevin Dust at the first sight of an insect. This is a huge mistake since Sevin Dust kills good and bad. Most of the good bugs take longer to reproduce, thereby giving the bad bugs a head start the next go round. By not killing the good bugs, I now have a helper in my fight against the aphids. I may have to hose these plants with soapy water because there seem to be so many on a couple of plants, but at least I do know that nature is working to help me.

2 comments:

s said...

Hi! i too enjoy being out in the garden and have been using ladybugs (bought for this purpose) to get rid of the aphids that have attacked my tomatoe plants. unfort. i now seem to have squash vine borers but when i went out to the garden this morning, there were a few lady bugs on my squash plants so hopefully (maybe?!?) the lady bugs will get them under control as well.

Wisteria said...

Squash vine borers and squash bugs are not usually the prey of ladybugs. For the borers, you have to slit the vines and remove the borers, then heap dirt over the vines so they will root.

Squash bugs have to be hand picked. You can make it easier if you put a board next to the plant late in the day. The next morning so out smush bugs quickly because they congregate under the board.