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pests Aphids! Arrrrg!

My habanero had aphids for the past few weeks. I tried neem, and they were still there. Every day after work, I would sift through the leaves and get them all off by hand. I continued using neem (3 times in the past 2 weeks), and it seems to be working slowly but surely. On top of that, today I went out there and I was wiping aphids off some new growth when a ladybug landed on my hand. So, thats good to see.

The plant seems to be developing well given the daily aphid battle. The only thing I notice is shiny spots all over the full grown leaves. I figure it must be the dew that the aphids excrete or something like that because my other habanero doesnt look like that. Luckily, I only have one infested plant and me/neem seem to be winning the battle.
 
Im battling millions of them here, several hundred plants being overwintered totally infested with aphids brought on by ants,
the easiest way was to removes all the leaves (aphids & all) but like i said its winter & no fruit so it doesn't matter as they will grow back soon for spring & even more bushier.

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Mezo.
 
Maybe lacewing larvae rather than ladybugs? I haven't tried them myself but they cant fly away until they change into adults...
 
I've tried finding "eco" remedies for two weeks, I tried cooked mint-leaves, onion&garlic, a solution of milk. All of these were supposed to either dry the aphids out or cause them to suffocate. I also saw this one theory to submerse the plants up-side-down in water to drown the aphids. I don't know how long they can stay there, but 20 minutes wasn't enough. Oh, and the other things didn't work either, and the milk solution dried to a crust on the leaves which I'm still trying to get rid of a month later.
In the end I gave up and bought some chemical stuff: Decis. It worked well, and although it is meant to be used on vegetables I removed the pods that had been growing during that time.
Haven't had any problems since then.
 
I tried the small onion, garlic, saop and water mix and it's turning my test plant... black. Any ideas here?

Stop doing what you're doing.

Immediately.

No advice beyond that, but I didn't think plants could actually catch leprosy.
 
I use a flame thrower, it has never failed me. On a serious note, I provide a sanctuary for lady bugs and a habitat so they can over winter here in DE.
 
[background=rgb(255, 244, 228)] I provide a sanctuary for lady bugs and a habitat so they can over winter here in DE.[/background]

Wow! I would love to see a post on how that works. I don't need to do that down here in the republic of eternal summer, but I'm sure some other yankees could benefit :P
 
Stop doing what you're doing.

Immediately.

No advice beyond that, but I didn't think plants could actually catch leprosy.

Yeah, definitely stop.
Maybe you didn't water the solution down enough and it's too strong? But definitely try rinsing all of that off.

I've heard that sometimes aphids can carry over viruses from plant to plant - might yet have something to do with the aphids, better if you separate this plant from the rest, you never know.
 
I had serious infestation of aphids on my jalapeno plant last year and made a soap solution that I found on the internet. 1 TBL Spoon of Ivory Soap and 1 TBL Spoon of Tabasco Sauce added to a spray bottle of water then liberally sprayed the top and underside of the leaves. I left this on for a day then sprayed the plant leaves with a blast of water to knock off the eggs. This did the trick and they never came back.

What I found was that my plant was under my porch light and the bugs attracted by the light at night just made a home on my plant. I have since moved the plant away from the light(20ft away) and I have not had a single bug on it this year.

For some reason bugs are afraid of my ghost pepper plant.
 
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