Even though you can get ahead of the pests in your garden, there is no beating the ants in finding the perfect place to deliver their aphids of different colors.
The cherry plants in my garden also had miscarriages like my Calamunding. All of the flowers just withered and fell and am not sure whether it was because of the lack of pollinators since the weather was not really perfect for the bees to fly the week most of them bloomed or is it because of the extreme black aphids attack they're going through till atm.
I didn't bother removing them anymore since the ants just deliver a new ones the next day as if they're laughing at me for planting Marigolds around the cherry trees to no avail. No amount of squirting them water from the hose would wash them off any stem, you'd just find twice as much of them the next day.
They've also found their way to the greenhouse and their cohorts are now plaguing not just the sprouts but the very stems of the flowers and the baby fruit of my strawberry plants.
That would bring a very small, deformed harvest or worse - browning of the baby fruits so it was time to go ladybug hunting!
The first day it got above 25 degree Celcius sunny after a week of gloom, I had to take my 7 year old used and poked on the lid - ice cream container(yes, I've been doing it a long time) which I've been using to do some ladybug hunting. It's small and I could just stuff it in my pocket while I go around ladybug - napping.
They're always hanging around the mere on sting nettles and this plant. I don't know what that is but it looks like this. Both grow much in the mere and on sunny days, specially on consecutive sunny days, you'll get lucky to find them.
It was the first sunny day after the gloom so I wasn't really sure, I'd find a lot. I only need a few anyway, cause I already have found several of their larva crawling on the apple trees which the ants also plagued with so I just moved 1/3 of them in my greenhouse. They aren't much so I had to go on ladybug hunting.
I don't normally meddle with nature, it's best to let them be but I also didn't grow my strawberries for the ants so I have to choose between the aphids and a good fruit for the future. I found a few hanging on some of that plants with the white flowers first but I didn't take all of them.
Think - BALANCE. They're there for a reason, so if I find a group hanging out on three or four plants near each other, I'd take just one - just ONE please and carefully, brush them in the container. If you find one on a plant on a certain place, it's possible that there's plenty of them around that very same place so I kept walking.
I found most of them on the plant with white flowers and am quite surprise that the nettles got none though I don't see any aphids on them as well. I found plenty of them on several spots and it was just one mere so I think I got lucky that the coots and the ducks haven't gotten to them, yet.
At the end of the mere, I found a group and a couple having coitus so I bug-napped them and left the rest alone and went on my way home. Btw, before you open the lid of your container, lightly tap the lid so all of them falls off the bottom to make sure you won't smash any and so none of them could fly away before you put any other new bug in your container.
When I got home, I counted 9 in there. They're all very restless but that's normal so to help them chill and become less stressed out, refrigerate the container. Leave it till dusk. You would think they died but not really, they'll all go on hibernate mode and nap.
I went out to make sure my greenhouse was frog free and close it all day to also make sure none gets to sneak back in while I go on with my daily chores in the house.
When there's almost no light, water your plants and make sure they're soaking wet before you let your refrigerated sleeping lady bugs out. I had to take mine earlier and risk the chance of keeping just a few the next day but it's alright. If they escape my greenhouse, they'd find their way to the neighbors' plants which probably also need them. I just hope that the couple stays in there though cause am hoping she'd lay her eggs in there.
Once you take the container out of the fridge, they'd still be sluggish but some wake up faster than the others so don't open it till you get into your greenhouse and don't forget to close the door behind you as well.
If you're just putting them in your garden, make sure it's pitch black around you before you go soaking their plant destination and letting them out.
Carefully, I've set the ones that are still asleep on the leaves I want them to be in and just let the ones that are already up and about fly away. Then I left them in there to do their job.
The next day, out of 9, five has found their way out through the slightly opened window but most of the aphids seem absent on the plants, too. I suppose they have done much chewing till it turned pitch black the night before.
I don't normally meddle with nature but I'm glad that I did cause a week later, the grass has been cut in the middle of the road and that means, the ones on the side of the mere would be next and I woke up to that scene in front of our house one morning.
Somehow, I wonder whether it would have been better to have collected all of the lady bugs I saw on that mere that day but then again, I didn't really know the schedule for cutting the grasses. I hope much of them have managed to escape with the sound of that noisy mower but surely, much lady bugs and butterfly eggs have been severed that day and we question why there's less bugs around us. Sighs and more sighs.
You? Do you also meddle between your plants and their pests? How? I'd like to know but please only share it with me if you're doing it organically. Thank you.
