Today I picked some fresh lettuce from my porch garden for my sandwich. As I was washing it I saw those little green bugs that are the BANE of my gardening existence! APHIDS! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Well I made sure I washed them all off (they do match the color of the lettuce perfectly so I may have inadvertently had a turkey, cheese, lettuce and aphid sandwich!) ate my lunch and then went out to inspect.
ARGH! I found SOME aphids on the lettuce but not a whole lot. I squished a few (ew. right between my bare fingers. ew.) but I kept spotting these bugs that looked very similar to lacewings but if memory serves, lacewings are green and these were brown. So I came inside to consult my crystal ball (aka the WWW) and found that YES there ARE brown lacewings and that is what I have on my lettuce plants, YAAY!
For those who don't know, lacewings are predators of aphids. But in GREEN lacewings only the larvae are aphid predators. BROWN lacewings are aphid predators in all stages of life! WOOHOO! GO NATURE! So I'm hoping the aphids will disappear and then I can relocate the lacewings to the garden.
In other gardening news:
The stupid, stupid, stupid ants have already been farming their aphids on my pitiful little tomato plants. I don't even know if they will make it. And I found some suspicious eggs on TWO tomato plants today that look an awful lot like squash bug eggs...... AHHH! I had squash bugs SOOO bad last year. I am so upset to find those eggs. And unfortunately, lacewings don't do much about them :(
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