The day came when in my bag of unsprayed kale from a local green house I found one leaf completely covered in aphids! How joyful a moment that was..... as you perhaps saw in previous posts I had been wondering what to feed those no-longer-hibernating-in-the-wall-cracks energetic ladybugs that helped me cook every day......
One leaf full of goodness...... and not one little red black spotted bug in sight...solution was to return the leaf to the fridge and hope that the aphids would stay as fresh as the leaf in those cool conditions.
Preparing breakfast and looking out the window to the bird feeders I realized that there were 3 of my spotted guests wandering around on each their window pane.
I scooped them up, gently, gently and ..... produced the leaf from the fridge..... aphids were still intact....... but not for long........the ferocious aphid fighters went to work immediately and by evening the aphids were gone and the leaf had shrivelled up, the red coated workers had gone to rest in some obscure corner and I have been looking for aphids ever since, but have been plain out of luck!
So for the occasional ladybug I once again produce a piece of pepper, red or yellow or orange, strictly vegetarian for the next little while
Back to the loom, where there are still Andean Stars and slow moving leather back turtles in the warp - such a pleasure.