Still amazed by this tomato plant, its growing like mad every time I blink my eyes.
Ok, so I noted my beets weren't doing so well. They got to a certain point and then seem to have stalled. Not sure if this is regular 'beet-ness' but today I happened to pull back the tops and looked inside... What a heart wrenching site. Aphids. Not just one or two, but giant black clumps all down the stems. I have never seen so many black aphids before. I thought I had trouble on the sun flowers, the beets are 1000x worse. I actually thought about how much worse I would feel if this was my only source of food.
Here are those little monsters.
Ughh, I can't believe it!!! And this was the least populated leaf I found.
The first sunflower plant I planted has bloomed, but all those little back specs you see are aphids IN the flower. !!!
The tomato plants have the regular green aphids. But somehow they seem to be less annoying. they aren't on every leaf, only a few, and when I spray them away with water, or squish them, I don't find 10x as many the next day, unlike those pesky black aphids.
One of the solutions I'm hoping will work. I bought 1000 lady bugs from halifax seed. Says to release a few per night and keep the rest in the fridge. I put a few out tonight with a little helper and they seemed to start munching away right away. They lay larvae pretty quickly and those things eat between 600-1200 aphids over their larvae stage.
Wetting the plants down before releasing the ladybugs. (note the pyjamas)
Lady bug in action. Only one flew away.
So far the garden has been a bit discouraging. I know why people invented pesticides. Its a BIG problem if you put in all this work to feed yourself/ your family and you find its been eaten by some bug. The problem of course is that by using those pesticides you make your food potentially harmful to your family. What a vicious circle.
I have been having the same aphid problems this year! It's so frustrating. The worst was when I had all my seedlings growing indoors with an aphid problem. I seriously was considering releasing ladybugs inside! :) Fortunately, it's not been quite so bad here with the plants now outdoors, but it's still a huge pain and a disappointment every time I see that they're back.
ReplyDeleteAphids are icky, no doubt about it. You're right to get on this. The water spray is good, the ladybugs are good. Maybe try diatomaceous earth, too. Just keep fighting and you'll be rewarded. Your garden looks good despite the aphids.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have aphids this year though have had huge problems with them in the past. This year we have a plague of grasshoppers. Every color you can imagine. Everywhere. I'm hoping the frog plague comes next. :O)