Thursday, September 9, 2010

Invasion of the Aphids

 

WARNING:  PHOTOS ARE NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH

For the last several weeks we’ve been noticing more and more nasty little aphids on the two artichoke plants that our daughter gave me for my birthday last spring.  I’ve been hoping that the local insect population would find this easy source of protein, but it hasn’t happened. 

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This morning, however, I did spot a single red ladybug and that gave me an idea:  why not buy more ladybugs?  So off we went to OSH and for $7.49 we bought a container of the little gals.  They keep them in a small refrigerator in the garden department and the bugs were pretty logy when we took them out  but very quickly got more active as they warmed up. 

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This evening, after the winds died down,  Mr. B shook them out of the container onto the plants and we are now hoping for the best. 

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