Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home

I was out trying desperately to keep up with the lettuce, and spotted this little lady on a leaf. 

... which was lovely, and reminded me of when I was walking down the driveway and looked down at my t-shirt to discover a ladybug was hitching a ride. I'm pretty sure it was good luck. Every time I see a ladybug (or a red cardinal) I feel like I'm sure to have at least a little bit of luck for that day.

I think I used up my luck in growing this lettuce. I've got to start giving it away! I have an "eyes bigger than belly" problem when it comes to planting seeds...

Those beds are 4x4, and the lettuce is roughly planted in a 1' row. This is a lot of lettuce for 2 people - even for 2 hungry people it's a lot of lettuce!

And speaking of overzealous seed-sowing...

 What am I going to do with snap pea vines that are 6' tall??? I have roughly 6 linear feet of these, too. Yeesh. I wish I actually liked them!

Wings of lace

I was out in the garden last night picking some slightly (ok, hugely) overgrown sugar snap peas, when my decision this year to try an organic approach rose up around me on wings of lace.

Going organic was something that intellectually I was very comfortable with. Somehow I ignored the fact that synthetic fertilizers are made from petroleum (wait, what?) last year, and I will say that the Miracle-Gro produced results that were nothing short of miraculous. I think -- it could have had as much to do with the large quantity of composted manure I mixed in the soil. But this year the neighbor opened my eyes, and that conversation, along with an incredibly thoughtful Christmas gift of a book on growing vegetables organically from my brother, provided the push I needed to go cold turkey on the fake stuff.

And now I'm happy to say that while I have some bug damage on my basil, and a bunch of weeds mixed in with my lettuces, I've also got something that's super exciting to me:

Lacewings!

These little guys lay eggs, the larvae hatch, and then they eat evil bugs! These larvae are called predacious offspring, which is my new favorite phrase. I wonder, could human children be classified as such?

I was going to post a video I found of a pre-teen eating worms, but it was so vile that I chose instead to post a picture of the salted caramel cupcakes I made last weekend. You're welcome.