Kitchen Garden Forum

Last week, my husband, Ken, was at our allotment whilst I was doing my Dad's shopping.

Ken rang me to tell me he had found dozens of beetles on the raspberries but had sorted them by liberally sprinkling Derris dust all over the plants. I asked what he thought they were and he said Raspberry Beetle. I wanted to know what they looked like and as soon as he described them, I got a sinking feeling....."Bring me one home please". I said, "Cos I don't think they're raspberry beetle..they're tiny little things".

Ken duly brought several home in a jar. Oh dear......I was right. They were Ladybird larvae.... He felt terribly guilty.

In future, he will ring me before dispatching any bugs......

Perhaps we should swap husbands for a trial exchange. Mine very helpfully did some weeding recently and dug out a nimber of dormant cyclamen corms thinking they were just clumps of dry earth. Mind you ladybird larvae don,t look at all like the adults do they?

Oh 'eck Primrose! I bet you didn't have the heart to tell him off though!

You're quite right, the larvae don't resemble the adult and if you don't know ...well. I've been mad on insects for as far back as I can remember, so I'm fairly knowledgeable on them. I didn't tell him off as he felt bad enough already!
And he was only trying to protect my raspberries....
Bless....