CEDAR KEY COMMUNITY GARDEN INVITES LADYBUGS
February 29, 2020
...a note from Tom
Pat Deverin, the Community Garden's transplant bed tender, thinner, and care giver, ordered and has released ladybugs in the Garden to combat aphids and other bugs that want to eat our vegetables. We plan to release the other half of the lady bugs in the next few days. So please do not spray anything on your bed that would harm these beneficial insects.
...a note from other gardeners
This ladybug effort, so otally in keeping with the Community Garden's mission and philosophy, and integral to our history, made us turn to the Cedar Key Community Garden website at http://www.cedarkeycommunitygarden.org/history.html where we found:
INTEGRAL TO OUR MISSION AND OUR HISTORY
The Cedar Key Community Garden was established as an organic garden. That was not a rule but rather Garden members wanting to grow organically. Folks that had grown with chemicals in the past, were willing to give organic growing a try. The Cedar Key Community Garden clearly shows that you can grow a lush, productive garden with no chemical input.
It's wonderful to know we remain on target with our expressed purpose articulated so well four yearrs ago.
According to National Geographic, ladybugs’ scientific name is Coccinellidae; they are Invertebrates and Omnivores with a life span of two to three years and an average size of 0.3 to 0.4 inches.
“Most ladybugs voraciously consume plant-eating insects, such as aphids, and in doing so they help to protect crops. Ladybugs lay hundreds of eggs in the colonies of aphids and other plant-eating pests. When they hatch, the ladybug larvae immediately begin to feed.” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/group/ladybugs/
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