Guarding Your Garden With Live Ladybugs
Live ladybugs have big appetites for being such petite insects. Their preferred menu includes alfalfa weevils, aphids, asparagus beetles, bean thrips, chinch bugs, Colorado potato beetles, eggs, grape root worms, larvae, mites, soft-bodied insects, thrips and whitefly.
As you know, these are exactly the predators that are eating up your leaves and precious harvest outside. Therefore, it stands to reason that the more ladybugs you have, the less pests you have. You can order 4,500 live ladybugs for less than $40 and they will take care of 2,500 square feet of garden space for you!
Catalina Mountains-based Arbico, which stands for Arizona Biological Control Inc., has been operating for over 30 years under the premise that we can have beautiful, productive gardens naturally, without the use of chemical pesticides.
“Bug-Man” Rick Frey began raising live ladybugs, praying mantis, green lacewing, moth egg parasites and beneficial nematodes to combat gardens infested by destructive and unsightly pests. Additionally, www.arbico-organics.com provides visitors with advice on fertilizer and soil care, as well as fly and weed control.
Once you order your live ladybugs from www.arbico-organics.com, you will want to take a few measures to see that these beneficial friends stick around and don’t take wing with your $40 investment.
First, release the ladybugs in the garden at night so they do not immediately fly away. (Ladybugs like to fly in temperatures above 55 degrees and in mid-day sun). Secondly, make sure to water your garden regularly so they have plenty to drink.
Let the ladybugs do their thing and kill the aphids; just be aware that the ladybugs will only stick around as long as their food supply does. Keep plants that ladybugs appreciate around too, like cilantro, mustard, crimson clover, bronze fennel, vetches and buckwheat.
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