Waging the war on aphids

While I was in Tennessee, my husband informed me little green bugs had taken over my garden, specifically the pepper plants. When I came home I found them literally covering the plants. The icky little pests were all over them.

Since I am trying to keep my garden as organic as possible I didn't run for the first bottle of pesticide on my garage shelf.  Instead I went to my local garden store and bought a container of ladybugs.  There wasn't a count on the container, but there were easily several hundreds of ladybugs in that box.  It is a total leap of faith to spend $12 on insects that you are going to release outside into the open not knowing if they will stick around or not.

After we released them on the plants in the evening after I watered per the instructions on the container, the whole family watched them settle down and start feasting on the aphids.  We brought out a magnifying glass and peeked into their microscopic world in amazement.  

The next day many of the lady bugs had stuck around.  All I could do now was sit and wait and see if the aphid population diminished.  On the third day it seemed almost all the ladybugs were gone.  I was a little upset, I thought for sure some would stick around to feast.  Then we noticed these little yellow eggs on the underside of the leaves and I went to check out on the web what it might be.   Sure enough these eggs were ladybug eggs!  

source unknown from the web

After a few days we began to see these strange spiky creatures all over the plants.  I soon learned that they were immature ladybugs and also strictly carnivores.  Hopefully they would do some damage to the pests on my pepper plants.

After about 2 weeks, the amount of aphids were still pretty significant despite seeing several generations of ladybugs born right under our noses.  The peppers were putting off quite a bit of fruit even though the pests were still around.  My next step was to search for a natural insect killer that I could use.  I found this recipe in a forum somewhere and decided to try it.

- 1/3 cup rubbing alcohol

- 1/3 cup of water

- 1/3 cup of ammonia

- 3 drops of dawn dish washing soap

I put this concoction into a bottle and my husband sprayed it on after the sun went down in order not to burn the plants.  I was worried about the ladybugs being harmed but I wouldn't know until I tried it.  Two days after the application of spray, another hatching of ladybugs occurred and I was happy that they weren't depleted.  The next day it was obvious that either the ladybugs or the spray had worked.  The aphids were almost all gone.  

The peppers are really taking off now.  Both plants are covered in peppers and have many flowers.  I have no real way of knowing whether it was the spray or the ladybugs that worked against these nasty aphids, but I do know that next year I won't hesitate in buying the ladybugs again should another infestation occur.  It was a fun learning experience and the ladybugs are a welcome visitor in my garden.