The day before we went away, I found some weird little spiky yellow things on the zucchinis, and all the little growing baby zucchinis were turning yellow and shrivelling up. Argh! I didn't want to leave my garden for 12 days when I'd just discovered a new, unknown pest attacking my lovely zucchinis...
We came back, and none of the little zucchinis had made it, though the plants were still soldiering on despite half their leaves going brown and dying. I looked closer, and discovered that the tiny yellow things had grown... and some of them had grown up completely- into 28 Spot Ladybirds! When they were on my potatoes, I read that they also went for curcurbits, and moved the potato bins further away from the zucchinis (which are the only curcurbits we have growing at the moment). That was a few months ago, and they seemed to go away. But they're back! Bloody things.
I have implemented a Humane Euthenasia Program, which involves collecting any I can find each day, and putting them in a container in the freezer. I can't bring myself to squish them- it just feels too violent. So the container is filling up, but I've only found a few over the last couple of days, so I think I'm winning the battle. There are a few new baby zucchinis coming- hopefully they'll make it to maturity!
If anyone else has this problem, I found loads of the baby bugs right down the bottom of the stem, near the dirt- I had to lift the plant up to reach them.
In other garden news, LOL, my roma tomatoes are starting to ripen. I grew these from seed, so I'm feeling very proud of them. I'm going to sun-dry them :)
1 week ago
1 comments:
We have them to, get them every year here. If your plants are healthy they won't kill them. We just give Anna a big container, like the ones you keep pet mice in but you could use a bug collecter, & she goes out & collects the lady bugs off the plants. Very educational & helps keep numbers down. They will survive inside if you keep putting fresh leaves in for them. Cheers- Sharon
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