The ladybird is one of those insects that you definitely want in your garden. If you are growing anything that is susceptable to aphids (green fly, white fly etc) then this guy should be looked after so that he can flourish and eat all those little guys that can check the growth of your fruit.
Here is an example of an infestation of green fly on our fennel. The fennel seems to have really tender flesh on it and this is where greenfly seem to thrive. They will not get their jaws through tough stems and tend to congregate on young shoots. On the left you can see a whole clump of at least one hundred green fly and on the right you can see a close up of the little critters. 
In general these guys won't do too much harm but if they get out of control they can slow down the growth of plants by quite a lot and possibly cause them to grow malformed.
These little black flies caused quite a lot of damage to our cherry tree last year as a result of being "farmed" by ants. Below you can see the damage it did to the leaves of the plant and the result was that our young cherry tree had a very stunted growth pattern.
So this year I was pleased to see our first ladybird who will hopefully be in
the process of laying eggs so that there will be lots of hungry mouths to feed.
The ladybird is known as the gardner's friend as they can eat up to 5,000 aphids over the year of its life, which can't be bad. Don't think that I want all the aphids in our garden to die however. I don't mind a few hanging around being part of the overall system and of course if they weren't in our garden then we would not get to see as many beautiful ladybirds. 
The ladybird pictured below is a seven spotted ladybird and seems to be one of the ladybirds most commonly spotted in Ireland. There are ladybirds with 24 spots, 5 spots, 9 spots, different coloured ones, different sizes etc.
They seem to like to live in gardens and anywhere that there is a bit of cover so if you are growing fruit o
n a balcony or somewhere similar it would be a good idea to grow something that will give the ladybird cover during the winter. Most fruiting plants will loose their leaves in the winter so you'll have to think of other ways of giving them natural places to hide. When growing food naturally it never seems to be a good idea to focus solely on what you are hoping to eat but to think about creating a healthy ecosystem within the space that you have. For example, flowers will encourage pollinating bees and hover flies whose larvae will also eat lots of aphids. If there are plenty of insects then birds will become a regular visitor and will play their part in balancing your garden. I'm sure the list of plants, insects and other animals that should be given a home in your garden is quite long, but whatever you can do to help them at all will hopefully improve the success of your fruit growing.
HARLEQUIN LADYBIRD
I read today that the native species of ladybird may be under threat in Ireland. Apparently the harlequin ladybird has just been spotted in Ireland on a consignment of vegetables from a major
supermarket chain. This ladybird which is a native of Asia was introduced into glass houses and other areas in Europe i
n order to eat aphids (green fly etc) as they are better than other species of ladybird at eating the farmers' pests. Obviously the harlequins have now become naturalised in many European countries including the UK and there seems to be a possibility that they will do the same here in Ireland. Unfortunately they end up eating all the native ladybirds' food which means they die of starvation. They will also eat the young of many insects if they are under pressure and so the natural balance had been upset again.
Having read about this I have suddenly thought of another couple of reasons to grow your own food. Moving cargo from one country to another has always caused problems to local ecosystems. The harlequin ladybird is getting a free ride on some vegetables and in the process getting the chance to invade new territories. Obviously buying locally grown produce or growing your own food would be one step towards reducing this problem.
Another problem with large scale agriculture is that people feel forced to use any methods available in order to increase profits or safe gaurd their livelihoods. They may start using biological controls like the harlequin beetle without really understanding the consequences down the line. By growing our own food without the pressure of needing to have the maximum yields we take the pressure off our ecosystems too.
i love lady birds i know nerlly every that you need to know about them!:-)
Posted by: lilly | 15 November 2009 at 15:07
I already knew it, but whatever thanks.
http://www.rapidsharemix.com
Posted by: Ioannes | 14 January 2010 at 11:32