Those Darn Aphids!!!!

Category: Organic Tips for your Garden | Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:36 pm

APHIDS.

I am listing some tips on how to get rid of these pesky creatures, on your plants.

Carnation dry milk: Mix the milk with water according to directions. Fill a spray bottle with the solution, mist the infected plants with it. The aphids get stuck in the milky solution as it dries on plant leaves.
Lemonade powdered drink mix. Mix 4 teaspoons and 2 cups water in a 16oz spray bottle. Spray on plant leaves being attacked by this pest. The liminoids in the mix,kill the pests.
Real lemon. Mix 4 teaspoons of this product and 2 cups water in a 16oz spray bottle,spray on plant leaves, the limonoids in the lemon oil, kill the aphids.
Olive oil/Ivory. Mix one cup of olive oil, 3 drops of Ivory dishwashing liquid, and 2 cups water in16oz spray bottle, spray plants with solution and then spray with water.( do not use on cabbage,cauliflower, or squash).
Yellow tennis ball. Use an electric drill with a one eighth bit, to drill a hole, screw an eyehook into the hole,the coat the ball with petroleum jelly an hang over the diseased plant. Aphids, like Whitefly are lured to the color yellow, and get stuck in the goo!!! and then they die.
You can also place a Ziploc bag around each ball and coat the bag with the jelly, and then you just have to remove the bag and replace it when necessary.

An aphid has a tube for a mouth, it uses this tube to pierce the stems of plants and suck out the juices.

Aphids excrete a sweet fluid, a favorite food of ants. Ants are known to protect colonies ofaphids so thay can have an endless supply of food. Ths ants will also move the aphids from one plant to another to sustain their colony.!

Aphids mate in the fall, and eggs hatch in the spring.
The femal gives birth to living femal aphids, hatched from unfertilized eggs in their bodies. This fatherless process can continue for many generations , until the fall, when aphids develop into males and females, restarting the cycle.

Mrs Greenthumb.

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eileen wrote on Mon Feb 26, 2007 11:08 pm:

Once again thanks for the useful tips Mrs G. I've always used a soapy water solution to spray on plants that are affected by aphids or diluted citronella oil. I must give your yellow tennis ball idea a try!!

bethie wrote on Tue Feb 27, 2007 7:12 pm:

Thank you. Love to murder aphids.

englishrose wrote on Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:59 am:

Gt do you have a favorite one that works best for you?

mrs greenthumb wrote on Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:45 pm:

I use the ones with the lemon, it is not so messy as, the others and it works really well, make sure you spray under the leaves of any plant as well as the top side. It will take a few regular sprayings, before they are gone.
One more tip!! If you plant Garlic bulbs in amongst your rose buses aphids will not be nearly as severe in fact I found that using this method, I had no aphids at all.!!
Mrs Greenthumb.