Bugs on Blackcurrants

[bluensm]

My blackcurrant bushes aren't looking very happy at the moment - they have red spots on their leaves and the leaves are curling up. When you look underneath there's lots of little bugs in each red spot. From my fruit book I think it is 'blackcurrant leaf curling midge', although it doesn't mention about red spots.

And the instructions in the book say ' at first signs of infestation spray with insecticide' which I don't fancy doing really!!! Thought I'd try squirting them off with a spray bottle of water (maybe with a little eco washing up liquid in). Anyone had this before? Any ideas gratefully received .

[Annpan]

You could try Rhubarb leaf tea - Steep rhubarb leaves in a bucket of water for a few days, strain and spray on. the acidic properties should kill or deter the pests.

I would personally do the washing up liquid method first, while you have rhubarb leaf tea steeping.

[Millymollymandy]

Both my red and black currants have that red blistering curling thing on the leaves practically as soon as they open. It doesn't seem to check the plant's growth in any way though. Look out for aphids later on as they're more of a pest and then there's the caterpillars which attack which I think are the gooseberry sawfly or something similar - they need picking off and squidging.

Before spraying with anything check to see if there are ladybirds on the plants and be aware that organic insecticides made from poisonous leaves can kill all insects, good and bad, whereas there are (or at least there were, back in the days when I used it) some chemical insecticides which only kill certain insects.

[Clara]

Pyrethrum is organically acceptable and works a treat, you can get it from garden organic.

[Millymollymandy]

I would rather be environmentally friendly than kill all insects willy nilly with so called 'organic' insecticides. I thought the whole idea of gardening without chemicals was to avoid having to spray with anything, by encouraging beneficial insects into the garden and using companion planting etc. If you continue to spray insecticides no matter what they are made from you won't get that balance of nature and will need to keep on spraying all the time.

[bluensm]

Thanks for the suggestion of rhubarb leaf tea, I hadn't even thought of that and the rhubarb is growing right next to it

Both my red and black currants have that red blistering curling thing on the leaves practically as soon as they open. It doesn't seem to check the plant's growth in any way though.

I think that's what I was worried about really, I've never seen it before and was seeing my potential blackcurrant jam slowing disappearing! I think I'll have a go removing some of the worst infestations but I won't go overboard, and I'll definitely check for ladybirds first (or try and find some and move them onto them...)

I can understand your point about not spraying things around willy nilly, I guess I just wanted a quick fix - the curse of modern society!

[Millymollymandy]

I just checked my plants yesterday and aphids have already struck - though I'm not sure if that is anything to do with the red blistering though, as some leaves like that don't have any bugs on them. I picked off the worst infected leaves and squidged some on a few more and shook out the aphids (never sure whether they can crawl back up the plant or not once they've landed on the ground!). Saw 3 ladybirds though I think I need a few more! I'll probably have a soapy water squirt and squidge session over the next few days.

Anyway the fruit has already set and is forming green berries already and the bugs seem to like the newest shoots, so I don't think it will affect the fruit, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. In which case help because I had about 5kg of redcurrants last year from 2 bushes and this year my 2 year old blackcurrants are as loaded as the red ones!