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Ladybugs are one of my favorite insects and their life cycle is very interesting to watch
in your garden but you don't have to buy ladybugs. If you have your garden maintained very organically,
you're not using a lot of pesticides, you should have plenty of ladybugs in your garden.
But it is important to have some aphids, their favorite food source. Ladybugs will mate and
lay their eggs on the underside of leaves where there's a good food supply for the larvae
so leave a few plants in your garden maybe some lettuce, some bak choy, some greens that
are stressed from the spring heat and those plants will become your host plants for lady
bugs. Now the eggs are laid in clusters on the other side of leaves so you want to check
and examine leaves before you take them in the kitchen, often I've found them on the
underside of mint leaves or lettuce leaves as I'm harvesting things to take inside. So
if I see those yellow jellybean like eggs on the underside of the leaves I make sure
to leave those in the garden. They lay their eggs on the underside of leaves to protect
the eggs from predators. Sometimes the eggs will not be fertile, some of the eggs will
not be fertile and that allows the newly hatched lady bug larvae to eat the unfertilized eggs
and have an instant food source. But they'll start crawling all over the plants and devouring
insects and again, aphids are their favorite but they'll also eat mites and mealy bugs
of scale and many other insects in the garden and the larvae are very hungry and eating
constantly so they have to shed their skin several times during the larvae stage and
the larvae look like little crocodiles, they are black and orange. They start out small
and they'll split and shed their skin so you see their little black skins on the underside
of leaves then they'll finally become a pupas or that larvae will attach itself to the underside
of the leaf again and will pupate and stay in the pupil stage for several more days and
then hatch out as an adult lady beetle and the adults will be a lighter color when they
first hatch and the shell will harden, so they are very susceptible to predators at
that time so they usually stay hidden, but the shell hardens and darkens then they develop
the spot and they become the adult lady beetles that we all know. It's a good idea also to
leave some plants in your garden to bloom because the adult lady bugs like nectar flowers
so I like to leave some parsley, some cilantro, dill, all the members of Umbelliferae family
are great nectar sources for the lady bugs and give them a little bit of a sprinkle in
the mornings if the weather is dry because they appreciate some moisture on the foliage
of your plants. But you don't have to purchase ladybugs if you have the right sources in
your garden for the adults to have the nectar and a good food source of aphids for the larvae.
There is a weed that grows quite commonly in the spring called the southwhistle and
its usually filled with aphids so I sometimes leave a few of those in the garden, you can
pull the flowers off if you're worried about it going to seed. But that becomes a great
food source for ladybugs so as long as you have the right ingredients, you'll have lots
of these wonderful creatures and they're just really fun to watch in the garden.