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Wulf's non-Glog Kill Log. ... A Klog.

I bring you this information amidst much mockery and questioning of my sexuality and virility, but my wife can shut up about it if she knows what's good for her.
 
Yes.  You.  Go to bed.
 
http://50.72.217.75:83/Peppers/klog/
 
This shall document my war against the aphids in my basement.  The bards shall tell stories across the ages.  Women shall want me, and men will want to be me.
 
Highlights:
The few actual peppers currently growing.
The spray of choice.
The aphids in their natural habitat.
Weird stuff on some of the bigger plants, originally grown at my cousins.  Likely a new form of death from my plants that I've now imported.
Zoomed aphid, RIGHT IN YOUR FACEHOLES.
 
 
 
 
We join our intrepid hero near the start of the second wave of this battle.  The plants badly need to be repotted, but I am hoping to win the war before getting them into proper pots and having 200x more plant matter to scour for aphids.
 
I 'won' the first wave by cutting off every single leaf that showed any sign of an aphid, and squishing any I saw directly.  That put them down for about a week.  Then they spread to the big plants.  Once again, I cut every leaf and squished every one, then the next day there was yet another visible infestation.
 
This time, I went to the local hippy store and grabbed some spray.  He said to use it 1-2 times per day for a week (roughly, he used less round numbers).  So, we shall see what we shall see.
 
FOR TREEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOM!
 
Click to expand...
Instructions unclear.

Have virile aphid questioning wife about effectiveness of surgical removal of foliage.
 
The lack of focus really communicates the photographer's disparate desires, allowing the eye to wander everywhere and settle nowhere.  Similarly, the sparing use of lighting really serves to highlight the artist's sense of apathy with the world at large.
 
Day 2:  No visible aphids, but I did not have time to perform a thorough search.
 
I have repeated the spray and will search for corpses to mount on pikes tomorrow.
 
...tiny pikes.  Perhaps some sort of toothpike.
 
Hmm, edema you say...  Perhaps.  I've never seen it that bad, but I guess it would fit.
 
Day 3:  I've given them no further attention beyond another spraying.  No obvious aphid-sign as of yet, but some of the leaves on the smaller ones are showing stress from the spraying.
 
Real life still prevents me from devoting time to a more thorough investigation.
 
Day 4: Fresh aphids were found in the buds.  Not many, but definitely a few adults and some wee ones.  24 hours between spraying does not seem to be enough.  For the next 3 days I will have to try doing it every 12 hours.
 
I will stop spraying after day 7 as that was the maximum time mentioned.  Also, the spray seems rather rough on the plants.
 
That spray should be hammering the bastages.
 
I start to see them in mid to late August, first I spray the plants with a nice firm spray from the hose. Let them dry off and hit the remainders with a sulfur pyrethrum mix.
 
Something else you can try once you've sprayed the plants really well, and it's dry, is simply mist the plant with a little water using a spray bottle. Not to the point where they drip. The poison is already on the plant so rehydrate a bit.
 
No sign of aphids since the last ones.  Tonight was the last spray and now my plants need a rest.  Leaves are falling off, getting black spots/lines, etc.
 
Hopefully the week of poison and death has been enough to destroy them and all their young.
 
I'll monitor for a week and update with anything of note.
 
On the plus side, peppers.
 
Ditch the spray and use labybugs,
 
May be too late, as you don't want the good bugs to get nuked by the bad bug chemical warfare.
 
Pyretherin works a charm when used at first notice, but after a few generations of eggs---it's a losing battle.
 
I dumped 1500 of the pretty little beatles on 4 plants, and killed the nasty little leaf suckers off in a couple days.
 
I let the majority of them go (by opening a window) and a few dozen stuck around to patrol for leftovers and newly hatching.
 
Still have an odd few ladybugs wandering about, and a few of them hatching from their own proclivity-----but in absence of bugs to eat, they eat their own eggs.
 
They're back.  After a month and a half of apparent victory, the aphids are back.
 
I'd poisoned my poor plants down to sticks to get every last one of the bastards, and now the aphids are back.
 
I bet this is all Moses' fault.  He's always running around and turning water into blood, or sending plagues of frogs at me.  Well damn it Moses, I DON'T HAVE YOUR PEOPLE!  WRONG ADDRESS!  NO HABLO HEBRESPANOL!
 
I've looked around briefly and nobody seems to have ladybugs locally.  I doubt they'd survive -20C long enough to make it through the mail.
 
The worst part is how quickly they spread.  I separated the first victim two nights ago.  Last night I separated 4 more.  Tonight, I expect that I'll have to give up on quarantine and just treat them all as if they're infected.
 
They've just started to put out buds again from the last time I beat the ever-loving shit out of them with poison.  I've picked 4 peppers since then, each one small enough to fit inside the scrotum of a mouse.  Maybe not comfortably, but I'm illustrating a point here.
 
I was not meant to grow peppers.  The universe itself tells me this time and time again.  I swear to dog, I'm not going to have any sizable amount of peppers until my son is old enough to inherit them on my death bed.
 
"When I first came here, this was all snow. Everyone said I was daft to grow peppers in the snow, but I grew in all the same, just to show them. They sank into the snow. So I grew a second batch. They sank into the snow. So I grew a third. That batch got infested with aphids, burned down, fell over, then sank into the snow. But the fourth batch grew pods. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest peppers in all of Canada."
Click to expand...
 
You know what's growing great?  My tomato plant.  I treat it like crap, give it no special attention, and it just keeps putting out fruit by the fistful.  That single plant has put out triple the yield of all my peppers combined since the day I first put seed to dirt.
 
You know what I can't stand the taste of?  Mother****ing tomatoes.
 
I feel this image truly captures my horticultural experience thus far.
 
SadPepper.jpg

 
Now I just need to photoshop Snoopy and Charlie Brown dancing next to it and it can have its own TV special.

On the aphid front, I only had to separate one more plant to quarantine tonight.
 
I've found the spray is much more effective with a slight modification to the instructions.  You know where it lists the proper amount to use?  That is the wrong amount.
 
The proper amount is after your plant is dripping with so much white stuff that it makes you gag a little bit, but you still sell the video on the internet for a reasonable sum.
 
Sure, it's horrible for the plant, but so is fire, and really, it comes down to poison or fire.  Lots of fire.  Spreading its cleansing warmth through the impure, tongues of orange glee licking at the aphids as they pop and sizzle.
 
But then you've got a house fire, and it turns out that's bad for plants too.
 
So really, you have to use 800 gallons of poison to prevent forest fires.
 
Smokey the Bear says so.
 
Are you going to argue with a bear?
 
Because it's a mother****ing bear that wears pants.
 
Just listen to what he has to say.
 
...I'm going to bed.
 
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