A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Plant pests and problems Aphids.....Yikes

It seems I just can't get rid of the aphids in my greenhouse this year. I bought quite a few ladybugs a little while ago and let them loose the garden and some in the greenhouse, but it was so cold and rainy that time and then we had hail too. Though the garden seems alright, I'm not sure where they went in the greenhouse cause I can't find them.

I'm doing all the things I've been telling others to do, like washing down the plants with water, etc...but I fear loosing my tomatoes like I did my peppers. Does anyone have anything that worked for them. Any help and advice would be appreciated.

Nice article, papito.

No kidding, I check for aphids 1-2 times per day, morning and evening so that I can "see through" the bottoms of the leaves against the low sun. Then I squish them. But I'm careful to look also for ladybug larva!

Rosepetal-- if you have a serious infestation, and you're doing all of the things we do to deal with aphids-- I have a thought. Aphids on leaves, while they obviously are not good, won't affect your crop nearly as much as aphids on the flowers and flower stems, and on the stems of small fruit. So target those with your defenses until you get things under control. Also-- if you have praying (or is it preying?) matis outside-- capture them & bring them in. They are awesome!

Hope this helps.

Thank for a great article "Papito" every article I've read so far has a few different things I could do with my problem.

"Marica" you know you may be right, some of my tomatoes are huge already and so far I've not seen many aphids sitting on the new growth or flowers.

Something funny happened, I had marigolds in the greenhouse and I ended up having to get rid of them. They seemed to attract the aphids not repel them. There were so many on each flower that I gave up and pulled them all out. I needed to give my tomatoes a chance to keep going.

Yesterday I washed them all down with water then sprayed them with a soap/oil/garlic mix. Not too many aphids around today, so maybe I'll keep this up until I have all the tomatoes picked off.

I hate to bump an older post, but I have a simple, purely organic solution to aphids. It is even better than the soapy water trick (and who wants to spray THAT on their tomatoes?). Simply dust them with ashes! Fireplace ashes, or BBQ ashes work wonders. It kills them. Come back a couple hours later, and hose off your plants...the dead aphids will fall into your soil. The only drawback is that ashes are alkaline. If your soil is already alkaline, that will compound the problem, but can easily be overcome by dumping your coffee grounds around your plants. roses, and other plants which love acidic soils LOVE coffee, and coffee grounds.

I originally used a trowel to fling the ashes on them, but most gardening/seed catalogs have little bulb-type 'dusters' that work excellently to dust 'em & bust 'em! Saves you from having to BBQ every day. LOL

We'd much rather have an old post bumped back up, than a new topic started for an old subject!
Thank you for the tips! I wonder if that would work for spider mites?

Thanks for the tips Seattlepolk
I use coffee grinds also,, and now I know what to do with the BBQ ashes