Aphids Be Gone

Getting rid of aphids in the vegetable garden.

I think these are aphids on my pea plants.

Aphids are annoying garden pests, but at least they squish easily 🙂 Before the rain this weekend, I was out removing aphids by hand from the peas as well as the cilantro (supposedly an aphid deterrent, but not to my aphids who think of cilantro as a hotel for all their friends and relatives).  Ladybugs LOVE to eat aphids, but I typically only find ladybugs when I’m not looking for them.  Last week’s search was unsuccessful.  In the past, I was able to feed ladybugs aphids and dewdrops from the tip of my finger, and watch as they devoured the little green specks and sucked up the water.  Pretty cute predators!

Another idea for getting rid of aphids is squishing them around the plant, which is supposed to leave scented warning signals to nearby aphids to drop off the plant or avoid it.  Or, you could use tinfoil to reflect sunlight to the undersides of leaves, effectively “foiling” the aphids into thinking that both sides of the leaf are the top. Aphids are usually found on the undersides of leaves.  Spraying the plant with water is often enough to knock them off, or you can just pick them off by hand.



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