[SnooziSuzi]

Right, as soon as I've typed this I'm off to the plot 'cos my ladybird larvae have just arrived in the post  :happy:

I bought 2 packs, each containing about 30 larvae, one for the warm green house which is infested with them and the other to go on the salad leaves that have hardened off outside.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Riala]

:O

What is in your greenhouse... and I was unaware you could buy ladybird larvae...!

[sean moore]

just found this
http://ladybirdplantcare.co.uk/Ladybirds.html
regards
sean

[Riala]

How scary... you pay £15 for creatures that fly away!

Although I would love to see Ladybirds in my garden.  So far I have been fortunate enough to see butterflies and bees though, which is always a plus.

And I have a pair of blackbirds that come and look, then fly off.

[Trebor]

You may not want to read this if you paid for them, but I got loads for free. I asked a local gardener if I could collect some leaves for the allotment. I collected literally dozens of bags of leaves and when I took them to the allotment a few days later there were loads of ladybird larvae that were on the inside of the bags. After reading up I found out that ladybirds like to hibernate in leaves – so moral of the story is collect leaves and with luck you will attract free ladybirds (and get some fine leaf mould in a couple of years also).

I am not sure you will want a pile of leaves in the greenhouse, but if you attract them to the garden then you could encourage a few in.

I have done quite a bit of this building natural defences this year:
Coriander and Poached egg plants with the beans (under a munty) to attract hoverflies;
Leaves to bring in the ladybirds;
Piles of rocks to encourage the beetles and lizards;
Parsley to keep asparagus beetle off;
Marigolds to deter whitefly;
A massive flower bed to bring in pollinators;
Garlic and onions with the carrots to deter root fly; and
I plan a pond for next year!

I am sure others could add to the list, but this is just what I am doing.

[strangerachael]

Parsley to keep asparagus beetle off;

How does this work? Do you have to plant parsley among the asparagus plants?  I had terrible asaparagus beetle last year. 

[SnooziSuzi]

:O

What is in your greenhouse... and I was unaware you could buy ladybird larvae...!

I've got some salad stuff in the gh - was an experiment to see how much earlier I could get a crop and it turns out that it's about 4-5 weeks ahead of other stuff   Unfortunately, it's attracted a lot of greenfly so not as appetising

You may not want to read this if you paid for them, but I got loads for free. I asked a local gardener if I could collect some leaves for the allotment. I collected literally dozens of bags of leaves and when I took them to the allotment a few days later there were loads of ladybird larvae that were on the inside of the bags.

D'Oh!

EDIT:  I got them from Gardening-naturally.com.  Didn't pay £15 per pack though!

[Trebor]

Parsley to keep asparagus beetle off;

How does this work? Do you have to plant parsley among the asparagus plants?  I had terrible asaparagus beetle last year. 

Plant it around the asparagus and in theory it will deter them - can't promise it works as it is my fist year with asparagus, but just thought it was good to give it a try. I plant it at either end of the row as don't want to interfere with the roots.