When I first noticed yellow aphids on the undersides of some leaves on the mystery marrow plant, I sighed, looked at the abundance of leaves, and decided there were enough leaves to share with the invading insects. It’s one of the most difficult decisions to make when you’re trying to grow your veggies organically and stay pesticide-free.

Unlike my watermelon plants – that were the next to be infested – this hardy plant barely seemed affected, and I forgot about the aphids until I looked closely at the photos I’ve been taking to document the progress of the plant.

A pair of white ladybug larvae (circled) hunting yellow aphids on a developing marrow.

There were two white ladybug larvae meandering their way on the new marrow that had just set fruit, and when I looked more closely, I noticed small yellow aphids on the fruit and on the neighbouring leaves. I had completely forgotten about the aphids!

These white larvae are from the Scymnus sp. ladybugs, which are small, dusky brown ladybugs that have orange heads (rather, the front part is orange) and rear ends. They are the ones that love feeding on aphids and mealybugs, and I’m always happy to see them here. That just means that I’ve got automatic pest control that’s not chemically harmful to the creatures living here!

Here’s a file photograph of a pair of Scymnus sp. ladybugs on the Red Lady papaya tree last year. You can see the rear of the one on the left, and the side profile of the one on the right. They were feeding on the mealybugs that were infesting the papaya tree at the time.

I wish they had made their way to the nearby watermelon plants, though, because the plants are in a miserable state right now.

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