Lady Bugs Rule

We have been pretty bad about posting. It's been a wet spring. We've been eating salad, and have just started harvesting snow peas. Our apple tree is doing amazing with about 60 apples. We've made a large batch of garlic scape pesto, and planted a lot of everything.

This post though is about aphids, hops & ladybugs. This year the hops have been absolutely invaded by aphids. They covered the undersides of every leaf, and all over all the stalks. Consequently, we've had a lot more lady bugs than normal. This year they're all over the place. As you can see in the picture, they're having a lot sex as well. There's still lots of aphids under the leaves, but the stalks are clean. The underside of most of the leaves are sporting orangish ladybug eggs, so, soon their larvae will take care of the rest of the aphids.