I have a window box with my herbs in and lately I have noticed black aphids on my chives (and a few on my coriander). There are so many on my chives, that they are all turning yellow and dying. Can anyone suggest a way to get rid of them, yet still making the chives OK to eat ???? I have read that soapy water will help - but I dont really want to eat chives with detergent on them !!!!
-- Lissy Lissy
------------------------------------------------------------------------ posted via
Use dish soap--after all you eat off plates that were washed with "detergent".
I used a little dish soap mixed in a strained puree of cayenne pepper, onions & garlic. The smell made me hungry and the garden smelled of onoin and garlic (a good thing in my opinion). It is one of those hokey home recipes but it did work for me. Supposedly good for more than aphids. Used it in an old window-cleaner bottle and sprayed the plant till it was covered (undersides are important for leafy plants). It didn't hurt the plants and the aphids were dramatically reduced. I tried a commercial spray cause the infestation got away from me lattr in the season and the flowers died--I read too late that you can't use the spray when it is suny outside--it cooks the plant apparently.
I also found that aphids love nasturtiums. They act as a trap crop. All my aphids were on the nasturtiums--the rest of the garden was aphid free. When it got bad I just pulled the nasturtium with all the aphids. You might want to grow a few about to protect other plants. DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,
I'm surprised that they like chives - bummer! A local nursery suggested we plant chives around our roses to ward off aphids. They didn't say that the aphids would 'migrate' from the roses to the chives!
Soap is not detergent. Detergents can be phytotoxic. You can rinse the aphids off. You can rinse the soap and dead aphids off if you use soap. Cooking oil spray might work for you too. (lecithin)
I stand by my original statement. Detergent NOUN: A cleansing substance that acts similarly to soap but is made from chemical compounds rather than fats and lye.
Perhaps what you have in your memory is that not all detergents are soap.
You have not named the dictionary from which you are quoting, so I can't check it directly, but its definition (if you are quoting it in full) is deficient, as might be found in a small pocket dictionary.
When I studied chemistry a very long time ago, the cleaning action of soaps was termed "detergence". At that time, the first synthetic soap substitute had just appeared on the market. The molecule was "sodium lauryl sulphate"; the tradename slips my memory at the moment. This and its successors were called "synthetic detergents", soaps being the natural detergents by contrast. That these synthetic detergents have now become more ubiquitous does not deprive soaps of their detergent nature, or even of their classification as detergents, although IN COLLOQUIAL SPEECH people often make the abbreviated distinction soaps vs. detergents. The point is that it is proper to classify soaps as detergents.
Here is what Websters Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary says. Note that the word is first documented in the seventeenth century, rather a long time before synthetic detergents existed.
detergent adj. (1616): that cleanses: cleansing. detergent n. (1676): a cleansing agent; as (a) soap (b) any of numerous synthetic water-soluble or liquid organic preparations that are chemically different from soaps but are able to emousify oils, hold dirt in suspensions, and act as wetting agents (c) an oil-soluble substance that holds insoluble foreign matter in suspension and is used in lubicating oils and dry-cleaning solvents.
There is also a definition for a verb from the same root (deterge), first documented in English in 1623 (again, well before synthetics), meaning simply to wash off, to cleanse. Nothing about synthetic, natural, or anything else.
So as I said, soaps are detergents; not all detergents are soap. I don't think your original statement is tenable.
And just to add to the confusion, the liquid synthetic detergent in my bathroom is labelled "Soapless Soap", which is an oxymoron.
For what it's worth, when discussing biodegradable cleansers, etc., some
35-40 years ago, we were told the following:
Soap is made from natural products and is completely biodegradable Detergents are made from some synthetic materials and are not completely biodegradable
There were some labeling regulations in place at one time as to whether something could be call soap or detergent.
Generally, soap could not do as good a job cleansing dirty clothing so detergents were more popular. Soap as supposed to be milder to the skin, etc., than detergent.
It would appear that the brand name is not indicative, but somewhere on the label it should indicate whether soap or detergent. I know that there is dishwashing soap and dishwashing detergent as well as clothes washing soap and clothes washing detergent; Ivory is one of the soaps.
Yes, there is a difference. Those with allergies are very aware of the differences.
Safer Soap has been mentioned here often for pest control but I've never heard anyone mention Safer Detergent.
Right or wrong, correct or incorrect, that is the information as I understand it.
The chives? Buy ladybugs! Spray the chives with the garden hose. Plant the chives in an area of good air circulation so the predatory bugs and insect eating birds can easily find them and their aphid buddies. I'm still very lucky that I rarely see aphids in the garden which has been the case since I started purchasing ladybugs each spring.
You eat from dishes that have had soapy water on them.. :-) A spray of soapy water is standard for aphid control. You can rinse the chives when you use them.
More generally, it's a metallic salt of a fatty acid. The ring around the bathtub is a soap, mostly sodium stearate, though not very useful for cleaning purposes. "Rendered fat" is too restrictive, because that implies that it has to be animal fat, which isn't true. It also doesn't have to be lye, but can be any alkaline substance -- historically, it has often been potash, which is certainly not lye. But we digress -- the usual soaps are detergents.
As you are talking about small plants, I wouldn't wash the alcohol off as it will go into the soil and might upset the plant's root. Just leave it to evaporate off the leaves.
As you are talking about small plants, I wouldn't wash the alcohol off as it will go into the soil and might upset the plant's root. Just leave it to evaporate off the leaves.
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