Day: January 4, 2017

Pest or Predator?

With gardening you see lots of insects, LOTS! I’m sure anyone who’s been out and looked at plants closely will have seen aphids, ants etc, but sometimes you come across insects that you don’t know and it’s all too easy to get cross assume they are pests and pick em off. Stop and think, is that a natural predator you are picking off? I say this because I was out in the garden last week (before the rains) and I noticed a couple of  these little things, wriggling along the beds and in my Mesclun patch.


I stopped and thought pest or predator? Took a pic, came in and researched. Thankful that I did cos they are ladybug larvae! And any gardener knows these are your best friend for fighting aphids and other nasties that suck the life out of plants.


Now you can see mine is a little different from the one above, definitely the same species though. So I did further research and found these: 7 Spotted ladybeetles


This one is definitely mine! Though there photo is better admittedly, lol! At least I know to leave these alone and let them do their thing, then grow into beautiful ladybeetles to eat all my aphids.

So stop and think: pest or predator! The same rule applies to eggs! Afterall the larvae has to come from somewhere right? Anyone who’s grown anything green will be all too familiar with eggs. From the hard round bright green pellet of a tomato horn worm to the ladybug eggs above that I saw on my lettuce last week. I wish I’d applied the rule then but I was so intent on stopping the pests I ripped the leaf off and threw it in a yard bucket. And now it’s rained. I hope the little guys are ok! The good news is according to the site:
In a one to three month period the female can lay from 200 to over 1,000 small (about 0.04 inch or 1 mm) eggs.

So hopefully the females in my garden and busy laying more eggs! Next time I see some I promise I’d leave them alone!

At least now I know one predator in the garden! Off to research some more!

It’s raining, it’s pouring….

So it’s pretty much been raining since Thursday lunchtime, not complaining we sure need the rain in Southern California, after all we are headed for a drought this year! The weather has been so changeable here in Southern California. 80 degree’s last week and storms this weekend, the plants are as confused as I am. Yesterday I harvested some oranges, collard greens and broccoli (more details on that coming soon). The broccoli was small but it was bolting, as is some of the lettuce. The crazy warm temperatures last week and the cooler wetter weather is just wreaking havoc for us freedom gardeners! I guess it’s just something to chalk up to experience, make notes for next year to get the broccoli etc started earlier. But with all this rain, what to do when you can’t get out and tend to your garden? Well obviously you drool over seed catalogs, do research online, do some planning and go shopping.

We had to go shopping at Walmart as Bob wanted a duffelbag for his snowboard gear, and naturally I had to stop at the gardening section! Now I still have LOTS to do in our garden but that doesn’t stop me buying NOW, lol. Afterall I have my monthly gardening budget burning a hole in my pocket! I had firm idea’s of what I wanted and knew that tomato plants were OUT, no tomato plants or seeds Di! I have 12+ varieties to shove in somewhere this year! lol! I knew I wanted mint and lavender, potting soil for all the seeds I bought last month and strawberries. Those were my priorities. So I came back from Walmart with:

2cu ft of potting soil ($8.50)
10 strawberry roots ($3.00)
60 onion sets ($1.50)
Packet of lavender seeds ($1.00)
Packet of mint seeds($1.00)
Packet of Black Radish (99c)
2 planters from 99c store ($1.98)

grand total = $17.97

What I really need are wellington boots so I can get out there and do something!