We have an invasion! The aphids are colonising most of our plant life. A common problem admittedly but how to fight it is the ever pertinent question.
Here at The Little Gardeners we're always trying to keep it organic so the obvious problem solver, of a crate of lethal chems, is somewhat out of the scope of our arsenal.
At first I thought they were flea beetles as they were dark and first appeared on our radish crop. Of course that led us on a fruitless journey to find some Derris but appparently it's now illegal or on the verge of becoming so in the UK. However, looking at the shot above these guys have got the same config as the green aphids no matter whether they're brown or green. So, maybe what we have got here is a mixture of greenfly and blackfly? When we grew some tomatoes indoors last year we had some aphid and spider mite issues to contend with but the aphids were all green, no brown ones. So if anyone can pass a positive ID on these veg munching criminals then we'd love to hear from you!
In the meantime we've ordered a mercenary army of Ladybird larvae to come and fight the battle so we'll let you know how the squadron fare once they've been assigned to duty.
BB
Do a google on 'insecticidal soap' you can make at home using old bits of soap or washing up liquid,have a try with mate
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Many thanks for the tip Hihe. We'll look that up and give it a try. I've also been looking into some parasitical wasps that kill off the aphids and may give them a try also.
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