Last Tuesday was the Tucson Organic Gardeners meeting. The speaker was Sheri Herrera de Frey, the head of ARBICO organics. (It stands for Arizona Biological Control.) She spoke about bad bugs, why we have them and how to get rid of them.

One reason why we have them is bad soil. Bad soil results in weak plants and bad bugs only attack weak plants. So, a way to get rid of bad bugs is to improve your soil.

Another way to get rid of bad bugs is to realease good bugs that eat the type of bug you have a problem with. ARBICO sells both compost (to help your soil) and good bugs. She had some of the good bugs with her so that we could see what they look like. She had praying mantis, lady bugs, lace wing and others. Some of them were in pupa or egg form. Others were adults.

After the meeting was over, we talked with Mrs. Herrera de Frey. A little later, she gave Bethany the lady bugs she had brought. To keep! The next evening, we released some of them into our garden.

Today we went out to see if they had stayed. They had. There were a lot on the rose, but out of the six we put on our strawberries, I only found one. This evening we are planning to release more. I hope they stay!