Unfortunately, according to Chris, no one explained to the ladybugs their indentured servitude status and they mostly flew free without fulfilling their aphid eating duties.
On the plus side, the boys (okay, mostly David) found playing with a bag of hundreds of ladybugs to be very entertaining and I highly recommend it, aphids or no :)
Henry, who possesses about the same helpfulness level of the ladybugs, quickly stole away to wow us with his somewhat less coordinated (albeit still highly amusing) rendition of "Me Ole Bamboo". So the evening wasn't a complete loss.....
We use a number of organic sprays. The classic one is Safer soap, but you can also use anything with neem in it. If you want to kill the little buggers dead right away, get a spray with pyrethrum in it. The other two mentioned above generally take multiple applications before the aphids (or other baddies) are gone.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I will try to track some down....of course if the raccoons keep feasting on my tomatoes it won't matter one way or the other :)
DeleteThere will be some ladybugs that hang around and even a few will do quite a lot of aphid eating! We use them all the time!
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