Selfsufficientish.com

I wish it happened every year though Happy Hippy as a lot of years we (I mean both me and people on this forum) barely even SEE a ladybird! But there are lots of nice oddities here like tons of Swallowtail butterflies - we normally have one now and again but there's always one in the garden at the mo' and the other day I counted 4 on one Verbena! and the Cinnabar Moth caterpillar is everywhere absolutely decimating groundsel and ragwort (good reason to let both grow but also good that the caterpillars control things like ragwort!) - I've only seen one moth which is a daytime flying very beautiful one but hopefully there will be lots of them at some point.

but not in time to save my broad beans, alas. Even with the assistance of the imports - the ones bought from Green Gardener - I've had to cut them all right back and stack them to let the hundreds of ladybird pupae mature. On the other hand, my runner and french beans are now blackfly free - hurrah indeed!