Help me, LJ gardeners!

[rivka]

We're having an insect problem in our garden.

I had been noticing that when I brushed against the parsley or melon plants, a cloud of tiny pale insects flew away. Gradually the parsley grew discolored with pale yellowish spots on the leaves; the melon, too, to a lesser extent. (The parsley and melon are right next to each other.) The parsley appeared to just have a little cosmetic damage for a long time. Abruptly, now, it looks damn near dead.

The insects are perhaps an eighth of an inch long and green. There appear to be more clinging to the undersides of leaves and the stems of the affected plants. I'm pretty sure these are aphids. (I was previously misled by some of them flying when the leaves were disturbed, because I didn't know aphids flew.)

What's the best response? I'm shocked at how quickly the parsley went. I'll be so sad if the melon dies from bug damage, after we finally got it to grow vigorously. I've seen recommendations for washing the plants with soapy water - does that really work? Or do we need to go straight to insecticide?

Comments

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Soapy water works for them and also for whiteflies. Also, see if you can get some ladybugs at a garden center near you. They *love* aphids.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Alex would be in high heaven if we did. We might try that for maintenance.

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

Yes, soapy water, or just blasting them off with the hose every day if your plant can take it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I don't think we get high enough water pressure with the hose, but I can try it. With the soapy water, do you literally just sponge/pour it over the leaves, or dip them in, or what?

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

I put it in a spray bottle.

Also, I've heard from multiple people that purchased ladybugs just tend to fly away into your neighbors' yards. But it might be worth a shot.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

The secret to keeping ladybugs in your yard is to soak the garden with water first, then release the ladybugs at dusk.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I was told in my entomology class that most of the ladybugs will always try to leave, because they were collected at the other end of their yearly migration. Their tiny brains are certain that they need to go somewhere else, even if they're in a perfectly good garden.

(We also learned that the other end of the migration cycle is in mountain caves, where they are collected from vast heaps of inert insecta using shovels. Dude.)

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I had to snort at 'mountain cave'. Some ladybugs had settled down in my first-floor (UK, second-floor US) office over the winter; I got both the ordinary kind and very small, grey, black-spotted ones.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's funny. We've had some hibernate in our cabin before, but that's not actually very far from a mountain. Maybe there's a population of terribly inept ladybugs as well? Though I don't have any evidence for the mountain business apart from the prof; I'd like to see it sometime if it's true!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

You're not actually putting the soapy water on the plants so much as on the aphids. They can't breathe, and die.

Ladybugs have a tendency to swarm elsewhere, so you might get some and then lose them.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Get a decent pressure-improving sprayer on your hose and spray off your plants.

K.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I've used soapy water successfully. Also, planting garlic near the plants you want to protect can deter aphids somewhat.

Chili powder

[(Anonymous)]

My mom used to spray a mix of water and chili powder on plants to deter unwanted bugs. Or maybe she just sprinkled the chili powder directly on the plants; I'm not sure.

-Sumana

[jinian.livejournal.com]

As a longer-term solution, I've had good success with using sacrificial plants to attract aphids from more sensitive ones. Calendula and nasturtiums both attract aphids and look perfectly well even while supporting large populations of them. I'd thought that the aphids would multiply and attack the roses from their home base, but they actually seem to prefer staying on the calendula.

The only drawback: it's hard to find these plants in colors other than yellow-orange-red shades, which I don't think match your garden very well. "Cherry Rose" nasturtium is a pretty, deep pink, though, and I think you can get calendula in a light enough yellow that it looks creamy rather than brash.

[tea-dragon.livejournal.com]

Hmm, does that mean if I plant nasturtiums it will attract aphids if I don't already have them? The cherry rose ones are pretty, and I was thinking about it!

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

An outbreak of aphids is to be expected - until you develop a garden that will help support a predatory bug population - which depends on the predatory bugs having something to eat, and not being killed by the sam bug spray that kills the aphids.

Aphids eat by sticking their mouth parts into the leaf and sucking out the juice. If you knock them off a plant suddenly it kills them by pulling their mouth parts off. So a good spray of water will kill them even if it doesn't look like it. For really fierce infestations I like to run my fingers over and crush a bunch of them and use water to hit the rest.

The parsley might or might not recover.

[acceberskoorb.livejournal.com]

I find that most small things can be lured away with donuts and/or soccer

[rivka.livejournal.com]

We used to sing a song at Girl Scout Camp about bedbugs and mosquitoes playing baseball. So the idea of an aphid soccer game isn't as far-fetched as one might expect.