This is the first year cabbages have looked like they were going to survive long enough to have a crop, until yesterday. Suddenly, leaves in the center are shriveled up and masses of tiny insects are inside. My guess is they're aphids, what do you think?
A Google search gave some ideas. I tried mixing Palmolive dish soap with water and spraying all the plants.
It may be a little early to tell, but there doesn't seem to be any change yet. Are there any sure fire ways of getting rid of them without using poison?
Well, that rather depends on your definition of poison. If the soap solution kills the bugs, it's a poison as far as they are concerned. If you use "natural, organic rotenone" to kill them, you've just deployed a natural organic poison derived from chrysanthemums. No less of a pesticide for being "natural & organic." You could encourage bugs (or other creatures) that eat the type of bug you have, but that doesn't work in two days time and also doesn't work if you poison the bugs you don't want, thus killing the ones you do.
It's a rather complex business even if you have sworn off synthetic poisons.
There are many tiny bugs, with no further information than that you have masses of tiny bugs, there's really no way to confirm or deny that they are aphids, or something else entirely. Step one, resort to a book or website that helps you identify bugs - possibly also use a magnifying glass or microscope to help you sort them out if they are very tiny.
Some bugs are repelled by strong smells and may be put off by something like mint tea spayed on - others don't care a bit, or will invite their buggy friends over for a tea party.
Yes. The point Lawrence was trying to make is valid however. Just because it comes from a plant doesn't mean it is safe or 'good' and just because it comes from a factory doesn't mean it is unsafe or 'bad'.
And I saw it as such, smacked my head, and said ...doh! I'm a doddering old mixer-upper. Thanks for correcting that.
Back to the aphids, if aphids they are - sometime simply lblasting them off with a stream of water helps - displaces them to where other things can more easily eat them. Or, if they are in fact already dead from the soap solution, but still there, it removes the carcasses.
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