"The Love Of Gardening Is A Seed Once Sown That Never Dies"--Gertrude Jekyll

 About a year ago I let a neighbor grow some kale and eggplant in Cindy's raised beds.  See The Gardener Is Gone....  He got busy with other things and didn't have much time to attend to the veggies he had planted, but they continued to grow.  

That left several of the raised veggie beds vacant, so when the family next door found that their own vegetable bed was being raided by voracious raccoons, I invited them to plant their veggies in Cindy's beds.  The drip irrigation was all in place, the soil she had filled them with was waiting, and her security system of anti-varmint panels was ready for action.  

So they came over with their kids, Maggie and Jude, and planted veggies, sowing seeds of carrots, beets and corn, and waited for them to germinate.  Then they added some broccoli and cauliflower plants that were a little further along, and those have been thriving ever since.  

And now another neighborhood family has joined us and has planted their veggies, too, so on Saturday we all had a Ladybug Release Party, turning hundreds of Ladybugs free to feast on the aphids and other pests that were eating the plants. 

Neighbors Tending The Garden

Kids Are Learning Gardening

Release More Ladybugs

Ladybug Ready for Release

It's been fun for me to look out into the garden and see it being productive and full of life, both vegetable and human, again.  And I know Cindy would approve that her garden space is helping educate and encourage a new generation of gardeners.  

Milkweed Bugs

Large Milkweed Bugs

A few days ago Cindy and I were out in the butterfly garden in the front yard, when we saw some strange-looking red and black bugs clustered on one of the Asclepia plants.  The bugs all had red bodies with oblong black markings on both head and tail ends and a black band around the middle.  Neither of us had ever seen anything like them before.

A little research revealed that they are Large Milkweed Bugs, Oncopeltus fasciatus.  Who knew there was such a thing?  We didn't.

Asclepia

The bugs love Asclepia, which is, of course, milkweed, and feed on the seed pods.  Because the milkweed sap contains a toxic substance called cardiac glycosides, the bugs themselves become toxic when they ingest the sap, making them unattractive to predators.

Although we've had several Monarch butterflies hanging out in the butterfly garden this summer, we've seen very few Monarch caterpillars this year.  Cindy has been reluctant to spray the Aphids off the plants because she doesn't want to wash off any Monarch eggs, but the plants aren't looking very good because of the honeydew secreted by the Aphids.  The Lady Bugs are eating the Aphids, but we're concerned that they may be eating Monarch eggs, too.

It's not easy being a caterpillar codependent.

Chow Down, Lady Bug!

Aphids For Dinner!

The Asclepia in our butterfly garden have set seed pods full of milkweed, and the pods have attracted more than butterflies--they've also attracted a horde of bright yellow aphids.

We've been reluctant to use the Bug Blaster to blast them off because that would probably also wipe out any Monarch butterfly eggs or small caterpillars on the leaves, too.

So we were delighted to see a few Ladybugs (Coccinella septempunctata) eating the aphids.  In a few days this one Ladybug had cleaned almost all the yellow aphids off this milkweed pod.  It's amazing how voracious an appetite these bugs have, but there are plenty more of the aphids to keep her and the others satiated.

And as far as we're concerned, she's welcome to all the aphids she and the others can eat.  Go Ladybugs!