Some insects on the pepper plants

When growing plants, I have to remember that beneficial insects and pests will come at some point especially to crops. Since growing the tomatoes and peppers, I have sprayed them with neem oil from time to time and also kept an eye out for those pests.

As I was taking photos of the newly fruited peppers, I noticed these tiny insects that are clinging for dear life and also some pests that may cause destruction if not eradicated from the plants soon.

Of course, this is an opportunity to take macro photos! 😂 I took out my 80mm macro Fuji lenses and started taking photographs. I have a flash but I figured the daylight is enough... although maybe I should start experimenting with them at some point so I can take smaller apertures and sharper images with them.

This one is a ladybug. I wasn't concerned, in fact, I was quite relieved to see them. I have read somewhere that they are in fact beneficial insects since they eat the other pests called aphids and get rid of some other ones like mites and mealybugs... although I'm not sure if they eat them as well.

Apart from the big one, I also saw a tiny one. Wait, hmm, I'm not really sure if this is a baby ladybug or another type of beetle. Anyway, it was so tiny that it just looks like a black speck of whatever. But upon closer inspection it was indeed a living creature lol.

Now with the pests... When there's a predator, there should be a prey, right? That's why they stick around anyway.

They can't be seen easily and I had to look closely. Here we can see those tiny black insects with white spikes. I didn't know what they were but upon looking them up, apparently they're mealybugs and they suck up the life of plants.

They look so disgusting I didn't even wanna touch them. I didn't even notice those babies with my naked eye. It's just when I edited these photos that I knew they also exist!

I just trust the ladybugs will do their jobs and take care of them. Hopefully. I will keep an eye out for the plants still, and if they get too many to be taken care of, I will spray them myself! I found out that neem oil doesn't really damage the ladybugs and only kill the pests. But I will still have to see because ladybugs need to eat. 😂

There were some black ants too and I guess they wanted the sap of the flowers. I'm not really sure if they are harmless to plants or what. :/

I also noticed this fella was looking at me while I look for some other insects too. It looked up at me for a while, trying to see is it should flee or what. I was able to take 2 photos of it before it finally fled haha.

These look like spider mites' web. I assume the ladybug will take care of it. 😂

Lastly, we got an image of a big fly on one of the leaves. I don't know what it was doing there, or if it even needs to?

It wasn't moving so I got closer.

After a few photos, it was still not moving despite my lenses being too close LOL. I had to shoo it away for it to fly cos I thought it was dead or something. I guess it didn't care about the camera, or it was high and didn't notice the threat. :P