Sprouting Up Organically Blog

Integrated Pest Management is definitely the most challenging part of transitioning to a completely sustainable organic system for

Heavily infested wormwood with aphids shortly after dumping the ladybugs

certification, or even if you aren’t. You can buy pots, dirt, and fertilizers, all pre-packaged and do exactly what you tell them to do. Even the seeds will do what you want most of the time, in that they are fairly predictable and have a certain cycle.

Bugs, whether good or bad, pay no attention to such nonsense.

We have a wormwood plant by our greenhouse that was here when we moved in, and has been relocated around the garden area multiple times. It is hanging in doggedly and even flourishes with gorgeous silvery gray branches and a pleasant scent. The down-side?? It seems to be the favorite place for aphids to live each spring in our garden. Each year we think we have escaped the infestation, only to have them suddenly reappear one day.

In previous years, we have tried bug sprays (organic though, but still….bleech). Last year we got smarter and tried to use benefical insects and released both ladybugs and praying mantises. A few of each hung around but not enough to make much difference, and we eventually gave up and chopped back the wormwood. The poor thing survived yet another year and grew again this spring. Once again, we thought, “Hey, great, we missed the aphids again, maybe the birds got them this year, or the cold weather.”  You would think we would learn. Nope, once again, one morning the aphids are not there, the next morning they are.

This year, we slowed down and hopefully wisened up. We read carefully the best way to release the ladybugs, and waited semi-patiently for dusk to arrive and watered down the wormwood, and then spread out the bag-o-ladybugs over the heavily infested bush. Happily, the ladybugs remained where I dumped them and began eating the aphids. Well that was only the first night, and the real test was yet to come.

Even more happily, we seem to have done something right this time. The rest of the ladybugs hung out and chowed down for a

Ladybugs chowing down on aphids

couple of days on Aphids-R-Us. They even went so far as to decide to breed, and we have high hopes of seeing little alligator-shaped ladybug larva any day now. Our poor wormwood bush looks a little cleaner and happier, and there are no aphids in our greenhouse. The beginnings of integrated pest management??? We like to think so….