I use spinosad for the pests it controls, toss in ladybugs when I find them and haven't just used a pesticide, and let the small songbirds sleep in the gh. They pick bugs off the ceiling and plants.

I'm trying ladybugs for aphids, we'll see how it works. How are they doing for anyone else that uses them?

Small songbirds? You leave the vents and doors open in the winter in Maine? =O

Robin? Are you using the Monterey spinosads product for thrips? I liked that but only later realized that thrips are like the nuclear cockroach of greenhouses! Unless you rotate with several other products...very expensive ones, the thrips will build up a resistence to any one product. They are a tough nut to crack.

I recently sprayed a high concentration of neem mix and had a single thrip trapped in the moisture. Did not kill it. I mixed up a stronger pesticide that did knock it down for good but I believe it had to contact the thrip.

Aphids a giant pain in the butt. They seem to be easy to kill but my God, they seem to just materialize out of thin air. Very very persistent.

Ladybugs and green lacewing larvae for me have just been a waste of effort and money. I've watched ladybugs crawl over and around aphids. The next day, they were gone... even in a closed greenhouse. Just disappeared. Out of the thousands of lacewing larvae I've tried, I've seen maybe one or two that actually hatched.

The best control I've found for all of the above so far is my thumb. Close inspection and then wiping out the pests with a mash of the thumb. It's also very very satisfying.

I released ladybugs in my greenhouse and cooked them. Oops. I didn't think it got that hot in there....I bought shade cloth but the plants stretched so I took it off.