who you callin’ a lady?

I’ve never-evah been one to condone applying chemical fertilizers to a lawn. On my trips home from college – way back when – I’d harass my mom about this nasty habit she shared with my father. To my mom: That crap just ends up in our oceans, you know. When I come back home this summer and hit the beach, I’ll probably be swimming in it. Thanks, ma. To my dad: Let me get this straight, you feed it chemical fertilizers so it will grow tall and thick…and then you get out there and mow it down every week? Now that I have a lawn of my own, I get to practice NOT chemically fertilizing it (that’s what compost heaps are for) and NOT using pesticides! But, I couldn’t do it all on my own. To get rid of aphids, I had to recruit 1501 friends.

Releasing beneficials is a really fun, really easy way to get garden insect issues under control. Last week, I recruited Hubs (friend number 1) and 1500 ladybugs (friends 2-1501) to get a handle on our aphid issue. In its 3-6 week lifespan, a ladybug can eat 5000 aphids! They’ll also make a meal out of whitefly, mealybug, scales, mites and tomato worm. Trust me, you want these ladies (and their counterpart gents) around. Most nurseries carry them this time of year. I got my army for a cool $7.99.

So…Hubs and I stepped out into the night – the ladies aren’t so active in cool weather, which means they’ll be less likely to fly away – and placed the ladies on spinach, lettuce, cilantro, sage, our dwarf citrus grove and our blackberry vines. Quick tip: keep the carton in the fridge a few hours prior to the release, again this is to slow the ladybugs down so they don’t have enough energy to leave the yard straight away.

Afterall, it’s not actually these ladybugs that eat all of the aphids, whitefly and scale.  It’s their offspring. This means you want to do what you can to encourage the bugs to put down roots. I’ve read here and there that placing small capfuls of water near plants can encourage families to stay as they do need a drink of water now and then.

Aside from all of the benefits to our garden, releasing ladybugs into the night with a loved one is really a joy in and of itself.  I recommend it very highly. There are several other beneficial insects that you can introduce into your yard – praying mantis, trichogamma wasps and decollate snails, for example – none quite as romantic sounding as the ladies, but just as effective! Here are a few beneficials and who they’ll gobble up for you:

Green lacewings: scale, mealy bugs, aphids, army worms, cutworms, fruitworms, spider mites

Praying mantis: scale, aphids, black fly larvae, mosquito

Beneficial nematodes: grubs, ants, beetles, cutworms, weevils

Trichogamma wasps: army worms, cutworms, fruitworms

Aphids beware, my ladies are already on the prowl!

mg

(note from Linsi: check out Morgan’s great blog grounded people for more info on gardening and sustainability in the suburbs)