It's only been a couple of weeks since I first noticed the bugs on my tomato plants so, they were getting pretty big already with fruit beginning to form. Some actually good sized. I was concerned because I thought it would be such a shame to lose them to this infestation.
The day following their discovery, I found the first ladybug. And the day after that, I found a couple more.
Within what I'm guessing was just a few days, there were ladybug larvae crawling around. But they didn't seem to be taking care of the pests fast enough for my liking. So, I continued spraying and wiping them off by hand, being careful not to wipe away any of my little friends.
Since I've never had these pests on my tomato plants before, I wondered if it was all the rain we had this year that prompted them. That was until I found this ladybug pupa covered with ants. I wondered
what are those ants doing to that pupa? Could it be that they've been farming the aphids and the ladybugs are a threat? I'm still wondering.
One day while washing off the leaves, I found these eggs. I think they're ladybug eggs. Whoops, I disturbed them a bit but I hope they'll still be okay to hatch. Okay good, I found more.
The other day while again washing leaves off, I ran across so many ladybug larvae that I decided to stop and let them take over the job.
I'll put this picture again because I think it looks kinda funny how the larvae look so large in proportion to my hand.
Here's a picture I took of some of the tomato plants this morning. So far so good.
I'll let you all know how it goes.