Hats off to the Ladybirds

These little troopers are without doubt the best thing we've bought for the garden this year. Ladybird larvae. I'd never seen them before, they're quite interesting looking things, they've got spikes running all up and down them and they look like they're made out of rubber.

We had what can only be described as a swarm of greenfly, they were literally smothering the garden. We'd read about using ladybirds to combat greenfly and we were pretty desperate, none of the organic sprays had really done much so we ordered some larvae from here.

http://www.organiccatalogue.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1192

I must admit, it was very strange getting bugs in the post. It turned a few heads in the office! Anyway, home they came and they made inroads immediately. Apparently they can eat up to 100 greenfly a day. Within about two weeks the greenfly were well and truly under control and now we're pretty much aphid free, a few colonies here and there but nothing the plants can't handle.

These guys grew big! They were gorging themselves. When they first turned up they were probably about a 1mm long on average, some of them must have got to nearly 2cm. About two weeks ago they started to turn into adults, almost simultaneously which was a little strange, here's a shot of them mid-flow.
They almost concertina themselves up, we couldn't quite work out how the red bits on the larvae in the top picture turn into the red bits here but nevertheless it was all very interesting to watch. We hope they stick around, we've got a ladybird house so maybe they'll make themselves comfortable and keep on top of the greenfly.

Either way, we'll be definitely getting some more of the troopers next year. Hats off to the ladybirds—they rock!

Aphid Wars: The Cavalry Arrive!

Just when we thought that we were on the losing side in our battle against the Green Army we've discovered that a new ally has arrived: The Parasitic Wasp Battalion!

These guys are dire enemies of aphids and actively seek them out. However, this isn't a buffet for the wasps but more a doggy bag for their unborn offspring. The wasps inject their eggs into the aphids and essentially use them as an incubator and creche. The egg grows inside the aphid, eats its way out, and then flies off to commit the same gruesome act on aphids of it's own choosing. Apparently each wasp is capable of parasitically impregnating up to 200.

Now we've also noticed as you may have seen from our last post on the Green Army that we had a good mixture of green and brown aphids. Well it now seems that the majority of our aphids are now brown and these seem to be the ones that have been impregnated by the wasps.

So if you see squadrons of small black wasps crawling and flying round your plants and looking rather interested in your aphid colonies then take heart for your allies have come to the call of battle.

Attack of the Aphids!!?

Look at the little beasties! Ground control to Major Tom.

We have an invasion! The aphids are colonising most of our plant life. A common problem admittedly but how to fight it is the ever pertinent question.

Here at The Little Gardeners we're always trying to keep it organic so the obvious problem solver, of a crate of lethal chems, is somewhat out of the scope of our arsenal.

At first I thought they were flea beetles as they were dark and first appeared on our radish crop. Of course that led us on a fruitless journey to find some Derris but appparently it's now illegal or on the verge of becoming so in the UK. However, looking at the shot above these guys have got the same config as the green aphids no matter whether they're brown or green. So, maybe what we have got here is a mixture of greenfly and blackfly? When we grew some tomatoes indoors last year we had some aphid and spider mite issues to contend with but the aphids were all green, no brown ones. So if anyone can pass a positive ID on these veg munching criminals then we'd love to hear from you!

In the meantime we've ordered a mercenary army of Ladybird larvae to come and fight the battle so we'll let you know how the squadron fare once they've been assigned to duty.

BB