That's more than triple - OUCH!

What do you do to keep the ladybugs you once purchased in your garden? They obviously need food and shelter not only during the time when you have aphids on your plants?

Don't kill aphids! They make a feast of aphids and can very quickly get control of an aphid investation. I saw a lady bug in the garden a couple of weeks ago. One season I saw a lot of aphilds on something and I got busy and forgot about it, 3 weeks later I noticed they were all gone and I was seeing lady bugs. Not huge amounts of lady bugs, but a few here and there. It was more the absence of aphids that indicated the lady bug presence.

It helps that I am an organic gardener and use no pesticides or fungicides or synthetic fertilizers and I try not to interfere with the natural balance out there if I cna help it. And if I do intervene, it's to support beneficials and try to reduce an out of control population of destructive bugs, usually by hand picking. In the case of aphids I don't try to get rid of them at all because I see that as an attractant to lady bugs. I'd rather lose a plant or flowers for a season to help establish lady bugs in my garden. It has worked well for me.

Zeedman, you had me up until you said they attract wasps and yellow jackets. [g] I'd love to attract ladybugs, but wasps and yellow jackets stress me out in the garden. I can't think of them as friendly even if they can be beneficial. Your garden sounds great! And those are two crops that I don't normally grow.

You encouraged me to look up crops I can grow to attract ladybugs...calendula, dill, geranium, garlic, alyssum, cilantro, butterfly weed, cosmos. I grow a lot of these and some I don't. I'll have to try adding a few more.

I agree with you about wasps being predators of bugs we are trying to get rid of. I found last year that wasps were taking care of the caterpillars on my brassicas. So, it's not like I don't have wasps and yellow jackets, I just don't want a high population of them. I did have a lot of them one summer and I didn't enjoy it at all.

Someone asked me if I meant to say 'Don't kill ladybugs' and no, I meant to say, that I don't kill the aphids because they are a meal for the lady bugs. I hope that clarifies that.

I agree! If you kill off all the first aphids the Ladybugs will never come. And, even if you buy the expensive Ladybugs, but there are no aphids for them to immediately dine one one, the Lady's wont stick around.

Windberry,

My aphid problem is in the greenhouse. Usually I release them in there and they take care of the problem before they fly away. I did buy some lacewing eggs, waiting for them to hatch now. Meanwhile, the aphids have moved on to the tomatoes.

Aphids can be hosed off with plain water, but it's not a one and done solution. You have to do it daily for several days to knock down the population.

I was following another thread on a different site and the OP was asking what to do about aphids. Over the course of the discussion, she decided to let them be and a week later she posted a photo of a lady bug larvae on the plant that had the aphids and not an aphid left. So happy conclusion.