Ok, someone somewhere should have told me or shown me what ladybug larvae looks like.
I came home from my week long hiatus to the lovely east coast and made it out to survey the garden around 2pm the day after I got back into town. (I got back on Saturday around 5pm and the rental car was due back at the airport at 5:30 and of course it had to downpour upon my arrival so I didn't get up and moving until today really)
Anyways, upon close inspection of my garden I found my peas rather wilty and not doing so hot - they got blown over in the storms awhile back and never fully recovered, I also found 6 or so FULL-GROWN cucumbers - wow that was a shock to find and delicious may I add. :)
But I also found these little gross and quite evil looking little bugs - so I got my dish soap spray out and went to town and even plucked a few off to drown in a jar of dish soap water....I also found japanese beetles while I was at it.
Thankfully it became warm outside and I was still wore out from travelling and stopped my killing spree because, come to find out [after some internet research], what I was killing was actually the good guys - ladybugs or ladybirds in all stages of their lifecycle -larvae and pupae - I didn't kill the adults and I am sure I missed some larvae...I hope. :( But, boy, who knew something pretty and good like a ladybug came from the hideous, alligator looking thing as what their larvae look like. Sheesh.
P.S. If someone knows what those other two large bugs are with the long antennae...let me know...(I think they may be Adult Striped Blister Beetles...but not sure)
And to fellow "green" gardeners - here's some links on good info about who is friend and who is foe.
Garden Creatures Webpage complete with great pics
BugFiles, your bug and insect identification database. (from Dave's Garden)
Purdue Extension - lots of pdfs with good info and pics
4 comments:
ICK! I'll trade you a very destructive chipmunk for some blister beatles. M'KAY?
If it makes you feel better, when I first started our garden last year I was all excited about these great new -and very cute- green ladybugs! LOL. I researched, and found out they were evil, and not cute at all. ; ) Totally goes against instinct, doesn't it? The cute little green polkadotted bugs are bad, and the sinister black- and red-striped crawlies are good...?!
LOL - thankfully we don't have any bigger problems than japanese beetles. No run ins with bunnies, mice, squirrels, or chipmunks - so you keep those in your yard ok, Momma Val?! ;)
Melinda - That does make me feel better! At least I am not the only one to make a garden bug mistake. Did the bugs eat your plants?! Did you have to spray and kill them?
Hey there,
This is Gary from PlantCareToday.com
No one likes bugs but it’s important to know which bugs in the garden are harmful and which insects are beneficial.
I'm emailing you today because we just published an article on Bad Bugs in the garden.
I noticed you included
http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/
in your post here:
http://squirrelchatter.blogspot.com/2008/07/
The article looks at 30+ bad bugs and might make a nice addition and resource to your page. What do you think?
Review the article at:
https://plantcaretoday.com/bad-garden-pests.html
If you have any suggestions to improve the article please let me know.
All The Best,
Gary
PlantCareToday.com
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