Now and then we have a few smallish items to share and this is one of those moments. This time the news pertains to a couple of our products, and the up-and-coming holiday. Here goes:
Ladybugs Again Available
We’ve only enjoyed one year since we’ve been doing this that ladybugs, Hippodamia convergens, were available the entire year — due to their natural life-cycle. Last year was horrible, ladybugs were gone for a while, as we wrote about at the time, so this year our optimism was reserved. Well, we have good news: It was just a few days ago that we announced the beginning of this year’s shortage (and put lacewings on sale), and now we’ve learned that ladybugs are once again back in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada, and are thus being collected. In other words, the fresh 2008 ladybugs are now available for purchase. Dig in!
One of Our Bts is NOT Bt
We need to figure out what we’re going to do about it — besides updating the applicable content on this site in a more permanent way — but our our Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) for Colorado potato beeltes no longer contains Bt. It now contains the active ingredient Spinosad (Spi-NOH-zehd). The manufacturer of this long-time product changed the formula. We weren’t told. We found out quite inadvertently. It would have been nice if we had been informed. We will either continue carrying the product and will properly update our content, or we will discontinue it. We’ve known of spinosad for a while and hear good things about it, and it’s shown it can get along well with most of our good bugs, so it may be okay. We need to research it a bit more. In the meantime, if you want to get some information about this active ingredient, a naturally occurring soil dwelling bacterium called Saccharopolyspora spinosa, you can get it from this Wikipedia page.
If you have had experiences with spinosad, good or bad, or would like to contribute some other relevant information, please do so by commenting below. We’d like to get your feelings about this product… it’s part of our research. Nothing wrong with a good dose of anecdotal evidence to kick things off.
Closed on Memorial Day
The heading really says it all. We are going to be closed on Memorial day, Monday, May 26th in observance of the holiday. If you will be doing the same we certainly hope you stay safe out there as you get your summer on. Hope the weather’s nice. We’ll be open Tuesday. Please note that there will be a shipping delay that week. Holidays can be hard. If you want to know about such delays in advance, please see our shipping schedule.
Happy Memorial Day!
