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pests So. Aphids. How much fire is enough fire?

Wulf

Wulf

I'm just gonna come out and say it.

I'm anti-aphid.

This may shock and alarm some of you, and I'm ok with that.

They killed my overwinters, and then somehow managed to penetrate the plastic perimeter of one of my seedlings.

But I looked my seedling in its eyes and exclaimed, "Seedlings of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers, I see in your stem the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the gardening of men fails, when we forsake our plants and break all bonds of horticulture, but it is not this day!"

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Through tweezer. And water. From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, I fought him, the Aphid of Livingroom. Until at last, I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the coffee table.

Needless to say,
The beast was stunned.
Whip-crack went his whippy tail,
And the beast was done.
He asked us,
Be you angels?
And we said nay,
We are but men,
Rock!
Ah, ah, ah, oh, wo, a-yo!
This is not the greatest aphid treatment in the world, no.
This is just a tribute!

...Where was I again?

Oh, right. Aphid treatments.

So, I swapped out the soil, picked every visible aphid off with tweezers, and rinsed the poor little seedling thoroughly in the sink.

If my love hasn't destroyed it already, what are the odds that I have solved the aphid problem? Do they lay their eggs in the soil, or on the plant? Would a rinse have removed them?

If I can keep this poor bastard aphid-free via manual cleaning for... say, a week? Will that mean that the aphids or gone?

Or will they still be hiding in the shadows, biding their time? Waiting for me to lower my guard so they can once again sup upon the lurid juices of the innocent?
 
Having learned the hard way, I now think that overwintering peppers offers few benefits and is generally a mistake. The priority should be maintaining a pest free space for new seedlings or for indoor growing.

My understanding is that commercial pepper growers in tropical climates, despite year round favorable growing conditions, are regularly starting new plants, rather than nurturing the same plants for more than a year or two. Productivity is better from relatively young plants.
 
spicy.curry said:
Having learned the hard way, I now think that overwintering peppers offers few benefits and is generally a mistake. The priority should be maintaining a pest free space for new seedlings or for indoor growing.

My understanding is that commercial pepper growers in tropical climates, despite year round favorable growing conditions, are regularly starting new plants, rather than nurturing the same plants for more than a year or two. Productivity is better from relatively young plants.
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I agree on the fact that bringing plants inside the house (in the same room or living space you grow other plants or start seedlings) is the best way to curse yourself with aphids and other pests!

In the other hand, I saw many second year plants (OW) that produced like carzy, maybe twice or even more than they had over the first year so for those who can do it in a proper way (in a garage, greenhouse, etc) I believe it is something that could be very benefical if total yield from a single plant is important.
 
I can’t find my source, but I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Caribbean farmers started with new seedlings after 18 months or so.

I heard on a Khang Starr video that he prunes his older plants to encourage continued production.
 
i have struggled this winter with aphids indoors, no matter what i do they keep coming back and spreading to all other plants but in very small numbers. The best method ive found so far is taking the plant to the shower and wrap the soil bucket into plastic so it doesnt get filled with water that cause edema and most aphids should fall on plastic bag instead of down into soil once you are showering the plants on the spray strenght your plants can handle, the stronger the better to get rid of aphids.

if you find a proper way to get rid of aphids let me know been having a war with them since i toke my chillies inside before rain/winter time started like 6 months ago
 
Bou said:
I agree on the fact that bringing plants inside the house (in the same room or living space you grow other plants or start seedlings) is the best way to curse yourself with aphids and other pests!

In the other hand, I saw many second year plants (OW) that produced like carzy, maybe twice or even more than they had over the first year so for those who can do it in a proper way (in a garage, greenhouse, etc) I believe it is something that could be very benefical if total yield from a single plant is important.
Click to expand...
i bough Lavender flowers from a gardenstore, when i got it alot of white looking dust fell down into my greenhouse which now later ive found out was the egg of the aphids which i had no clue of back then and ignored it, so even stuff you buy in a store that are supposed to be professional it can happen
 
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Sinder said:
i bough Lavender flowers from a gardenstore, when i got it alot of white looking dust fell down into my greenhouse which now later ive found out was the egg of the aphids which i had no clue of back then and ignored it, so even stuff you buy in a store that are supposed to be professional it can happen
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Store bought plants... always depnds and rhymes with Russian roulette to me! The few plants I buy (mostly houseplants) are thoroughly inspected and placed in "quaratine" for a certain time before joining the group, just in case.
 
I started gardening in late August 2022. I bought a few plants at the local store, tomatoes and peppers. The plants were about a foot tall. Of course, this was much too late in the year and by October I had to choose between bringing them inside or letting the winter take them. I brought them inside. By this time I was trying to start a large (much too large) number of plants from seed. Soon my seedlings were starting to decline. I did a little research and inspected the plants. I not only had plenty of aphids, I also had scale, whitefly and powder mildew. I tried neem oil without much luck. I finally got the aphids under control with a combination of glue traps, insecticidal soap spray and manual squishing. The soap also did a good job against the mildew, not so much with the whitefly and scale. For the scale, I was reduced to going after them with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol - very time consuming. By March I had things mostly under control but during the winter I lost over a hundred seedlings to the pests. Of the 7 plants I tried to overwinter, 3 survived.

I intend to start more seedlings next year. I won't be bringing any soil in from outdoors from now on or trying to overwinter plants. I live in zone 9b, so some of my peppers may survive the winter. I've made a huge number of mistakes and I've learned from those but I'm sure I'll discover new ones as I go forward.
 
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