The Practical Gardener

“A ladybug can consume 50 aphids per day,” says the Ladybug Lady.  Whohoo, aphids watch out.

This assertion is supported by the folks at Cornell University.  Each day a convergent lady beetle larvae may eat its weight in aphids while an adult can take out 50.  Since this is the kind of beetle typically sold for biological control,  it sounds like our aphid problem can be solved for an investment of  $13.95 (give or take) plus shipping. Right?

Wrong. Well probably not. Here’s why. Read the rest of this entry →

Mite (not of the eyebrow), false color, magnified 850x (Wikipedia)

There is a mite that lives on the follicles of your eyebrows. Okay, a mite is not an insect but that line is an attention getter and I couldn’t make the title, “Appreciating arthropods”. Anyway, for most people a mite, or termite, or beetle, or ant are all just bugs. (They’d be wrong. The last 3 are insects but not bugs and the first is neither – a story for another post.)

Read the rest of this entry →