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Just been down to my allotment to discover that millions of aphids are all over my fennel. It's not even April yet, there should not be that many! I think it will be a pretty bad year for aphids this year as the winter was so mild. So I thought I would start this thread for some ideas of how to get rid of them.

1. I found a ladybird on the fence on the way out. I picked it up and put it on the fennel leaves. Hopefully it will eat its fill!
2. Washing up liquid (ecover) in a spray bottle, squirt the little beggers.

3. squish them with your fingers.
4. pay the kids to squish them with their fingers - warning... kids can be a bit heavy handed and might just squish the plants too :)

1. Blast 'em with the hose! (perhaps not the more tender crops).

2. As well as ladybirds... Lacewing and hoverfly larvae adore feasting on aphids.

I have heard on the grape vine that many people swear by shredding banana skins and burying them around plants. Never tried it though... anyone else

Blow your ciggy smoke over them!!!

Napalm or 5 gallons of petrol and a box of matches!! ;-)

going alng the cigarette smoke line - steep some tobacco in water, then strain it and spray it on the plants.

Basil.

Worked gobsmackingly well last year. I had a row of beans covered in blackfly, ants farming them like billy-o. So before the next row of beans came up I planted a few basil plants in between the two rows - not a single aphid crossed the line.

Clara x.

I noticed aphids on the mint plant that I bought from the garden store. Some green ones and some very small almost feathery looking white things (I think they were aphids). There weren't all that many, so I took some scotch tape and made a roll with the sticky side out and dabbed them up with it. It seemed to work well, I'll probably have to repeat the treatment though.

Interesting re the basil... my basil was infested with aphids!!!

We've got loads of ladybirds in the garden at the moment.. hardly saw one last year but this year I counted about 15 or so at the weekend, several of them were mating - hopefully lots of eggs will be laid as it's the larvae that eat the most aphids YAY!

Strange indeed.

The basil that I used in between my rows of beans was bought in a market, it had smaller pointier leaves than normal and smelled quite strong (sort of medicinal, aniseedish, strange). I wouldn´t have used it for cooking because of this. Sorry but I couldn´t tell you the variety, perhaps some Spanish type?

I bought some again this year but it got killed off in a late frost, so I´m having to raise the normal sort from seed for this purpose. Let´s see what happens.....

Clara x.

Clara wrote:Strange indeed.

The basil that I used in between my rows of beans was bought in a market, it had smaller pointier leaves than normal and smelled quite strong (sort of medicinal, aniseedish, strange). I wouldn´t have used it for cooking because of this. Sorry but I couldn´t tell you the variety, perhaps some Spanish type?

Clara x.

We used to grow something in Hawaii that sounds exactly the same. It was Thai Basil if I remember correctly...

Trin
xxx

sorry, lost track of the number but......

sprinkle a light coating of plain flour over the whole plant (try to get backs of leaves too)
next time you water...no more aphids