Comments on: Convergent lady killers

By: Meredith

Meredith — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:38:24 +0000

I had the same scenario in my garden earlier this year, only the aphids were on my cantaloupe, and then the sooty mold came. On the plus side, the cantaloupe (doomed to fail anyway because I learned the hard way that store-bought cantaloupes are typically hybrids that won’t produce edible cantaloupes) became my trap plant, and the aphids all stayed there and left the rest of my garden mostly alone. The ladybugs are fun to release on them (release the hounds!) — just make sure you’re not buying the invasive Asian ladybeetle kind (they have a sort of “M” pattern on their head — not only will they invade your house, but they bite).

By: On squash and friends | Eat The Yard

On squash and friends | Eat The Yard — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:19:17 +0000

[...] last few weeks of that time they sat on plants sickened first by a massive aphid infestation (see Convergent lady killers, posted Nov. 17) and then by powdery mildew — the same pest that kept all the other out-of-season [...]

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:54:23 +0000

I think next season we’ll get some ladybugs as well. Hope that there’s no jinx from this post

By: Katie

Katie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:17:21 +0000

next ladybug season you can have some of ours. the empty lot by our house was swarming with them earlier in the year. they were literally carpeting the ground. which I found odd because there were only very few and very tiny little weeds for them to hang out on and I couldn’t find any aphids. crazy ladybugs.

By: Mike Crolene

Mike Crolene — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:15:17 +0000

I never thought about it in terms of overriding native ladybugs, thanks for that, now I’m an even more obnoxious environmentalist. Not even ladybugs are sacred.

By: Anna

Anna — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:11:45 +0000

A saw a lady bug in my garden this morning when I was watering!! Yay!

By: Ilona

Ilona — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:28:50 +0000

I like hearing about garden reality. Our native ladybugs have been largely superseded by the Asian types which are sort of pesky. In the last couple years it has been the Japanese beetle that devastates everything here.