I decided to start a vegetable garden a few weeks ago, I have had some fun and some trouble lol. I am growing tomatoes, cucumbers, and pumpkins! The pumpkins and cucumbers are hanging tight in the desert weather that we have here in New Mexico and my tomatoes are being stubborn, but I have to buy a microscope and check out what bugs are eating my plants!!! My dad said I should buy some ladybugs because they naturally get rid of most of the infestation and I still can't figure out just how he learned this. I looked it up after he told me they would help and sure enough all the information was right there! Dads they're great!
So with that in mind I wanted to share what I learned from my dad! He told me that you can buy ladybugs on the Internet, Amazon sells them in their adult stage at about 1500 ladybugs for about seven bucks!
Lady bugs are your natural defense against those pesky hard to see bugs and they are harmless!! You can use them on all kinds of plants and they kill aphids, mealybugs, mites, scale insects, and thrips.
My first question for my dad was how do you get a bug to stay on or in your garden and how would you use them? I mean buying 1500 lady bugs for a few plants is pretty excessive I would think. My dad had a good laugh and told me that to keep them dormant or asleep as my dad put it, you refrigerate them. WHAT! Bugs in my fridge! Yup he said, you keep them in the container they came in and only let out a few at a time, over time when you need them. I must admit I thought that was nuts but it makes sense now.
My next question was, well lady bugs fly, whats the point in buying lady bugs that are just gonna fly away? Of course my dad has answer's for everything! He told me to fill a spray bottle with a small solution of sugar water, release the lady bugs at night because they won't fly, and spray them with the sugar water. I thought about that for a minute and figured out why he would do that. The sugar water mix is sticky and when you spray the lady bugs with the solution it makes their wings sticky so then they have to clean them off! My dad says that the sugar water will give you a few extra days of them hanging around eating the bugs and laying eggs, while they clean the sugar off there wings so they can fly away.
Using sugar water will not harm your lady bugs, but it will help you keep them around a bit longer if you don't have any plants that attract lady bugs!
Well I'm off to go buy some lady bugs and try out my dad technique and maybe I can get rid of these pesky bugs!!
My first question for my dad was how do you get a bug to stay on or in your garden and how would you use them? I mean buying 1500 lady bugs for a few plants is pretty excessive I would think. My dad had a good laugh and told me that to keep them dormant or asleep as my dad put it, you refrigerate them. WHAT! Bugs in my fridge! Yup he said, you keep them in the container they came in and only let out a few at a time, over time when you need them. I must admit I thought that was nuts but it makes sense now.
My next question was, well lady bugs fly, whats the point in buying lady bugs that are just gonna fly away? Of course my dad has answer's for everything! He told me to fill a spray bottle with a small solution of sugar water, release the lady bugs at night because they won't fly, and spray them with the sugar water. I thought about that for a minute and figured out why he would do that. The sugar water mix is sticky and when you spray the lady bugs with the solution it makes their wings sticky so then they have to clean them off! My dad says that the sugar water will give you a few extra days of them hanging around eating the bugs and laying eggs, while they clean the sugar off there wings so they can fly away.
Using sugar water will not harm your lady bugs, but it will help you keep them around a bit longer if you don't have any plants that attract lady bugs!
Well I'm off to go buy some lady bugs and try out my dad technique and maybe I can get rid of these pesky bugs!!
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