top of page

Week 9


basket of veggies

Hi everyone,

It's high summer and I have to remind myself to enjoy every hot steamy minute of it. It comes and goes so quickly! The tomatoes are pouring in and I still can't get enough of them... the peppers are recovering pretty well from their aphid attack and are sending up new growth even as the first peppers on them are turning all sorts of bright colors – reds, oranges and yellows, mostly, but there are some lovely shades of purple and green, too.


aphid infestation

To control the aphids, which are tiny little bugs that reproduce incessantly and suck the juices out of the plants, leaving them brown and wilted, Sue bought a box of ladybugs and set them loose in the pepper tent. Ladybugs love to eat aphids, and they really went to town in there. We weeded the peppers today (which is very hot work, since the pepper tent is actually a pepper sauna...) and didn't find a single aphid, just lots of ladybug babies. ​​


(Here's a picture of some not-so-lovely aphids.)


I've read about using beneficial insects to control a problem like this often enough and I plant lots of flowers to try and attract beneficial insects to my garden, but I'd never seen what 4500 hungry ladybugs can actually do to an aphid infestation that must have numbered in the millions.


Very cool

And here's a ladybug nymph ...​​that turns into a full-grown ladybug...

 
ladybug nymph
newly molted ladybug

​​

​​

 

Here are some other pictures of summer!

newly dug garlic

Garlic that's drying before being braided –


A delicious pasta "sauce" made from some of my heirloom tomatoes, fresh PA peaches and an Ailsa Craig onion from the garden. Yum!



 

​​Lovely echinacea (pink coneflower).



All the best,

Sarah VanNorstrand

for Lucky Moon Farm


No tags yet.
Search By Tags

Join our mailing list

Never miss an update

Name

Email

Featured Posts
Categories
Archive
!
Widget Didn’t Load
Check your internet and refresh this page.
If that doesn’t work, contact us.
bottom of page