I’m trying some new things in the yard, one of which is brussels sprouts: I dedicated a whole garden bed to them, easily a quarter of the arable land in my back 40 (yards). So I have about a dozen plants that were doing very nicely until the aphids moved in: now the leaves are tattered, and some are browning (this might just be normal for the bottom few leaves, but the coincidence is unsettling.) After I discovered the aphid population, I first tried spraying them off with the hose, but the leaves grow in such tight little balls that it’s really hard to hit the bugs without getting a little too… intimate with the plants-- it’s like trying to get something out of the middle of a head of cabbage.
I tried spraying the plants with a mixture of baking soda and water (I already had it mixed because of a powdery mildew problem on the snap peas across the yard), and then a Dr Bronners-water mixture, which was more effective in smiting the bugs on contact, but I still couldn’t access the vast majority of them because of the head-y nature of the plants. I unleashed a tub of ladybugs, and inter-planted some marigolds to try and coax the ladybugs to hang around, but they seem to have wandered off. I left out a couple of beer traps in case the problem was exacerbated by slugs or snails, but no sign of either.
Today I went back to the hose, peeling back every tiny leaf in the centers of the plants and knocking the bugs off as best i could; I also found a handful of caterpillars cocooned in them as well, which might be where some of the more egregious leaf-chewing damage came from. Will the meticulous and time-consuming process of spraying the bugs off with a hose prove effective, or will they just climb back up in there? Am I damaging the plants too much by getting so invasive with the sprayer? Since I’ve never grown these before, I don’t know how they are going to develop from here, so I don’t know whether prying the leaves apart is safe or harmful. Should I add soap back into the equation? Any other bright ideas?
One of the problems that many people have when they release ladybugs is that they don’t stay put. We like them to stay around and eat the aphids at our house and not our neighbors. There are a couple of ways to insure that ladybugs stay in your yard or garden.
* Release them before sunrise or after dark - they navigate using the sun.
* Cool them off in the fridge before releasing them, they are less active then.
* Water the garden or area where you release them, they tend to "stick" a bit better and they will drink the moisture on the leaves.
[hijack]I bought 1500 ladybugs from Fred Meyer, which turned out to be 100 ladybugs and 1400 tiny shiny corpses, since they never bothered to care for the critters after they got them, just hung them in the shop and waited for gullible gardeners like me to buy them.:rolleyes: I want to order some online in hopes of getting a more lively quantity, but I didn’t know if the white oil would be fatal for them as well as the pests.[/hijack]
It’s a little early for Brussel Sprouts. You may just want to try again in the late summer for a fall/winter crop. (You can start the seeds indoors now.) Let the weather take care of the aphids–plus, Fall Brussel Sprouts taste better than Summer Brussel Sprouts!
The major pest of brussels sprouts (in the Midwest, at any rate) is cabbage loopers, probably those little worms you’re seeing (they’re small, soft and green), and they can turn leaves to swiss cheese or disappear them entirely in short order. Since you have a lot of plants, using BT (“natural” bacterial pest control) is the best way to handle them. Works great - you just have to reapply the spray every couple weeks or so. Aphids are usually a lesser problem, controlled either through continually spraying them off with water or through a pyrethrum-type spray (there are organic and not-so-organic versions).
And while you can set out plants or even start seeds in late spring, you’ll lose harvest time or not even get a crop in places with early fall freezes. I try to get small plants out in April and can start harvesting as early as September. The sprouts taste just fine, with or without the “benefit” of having been frosted.
But they’re growing so well (aside from a little aphid abuse). Are you saying to rip them out and plant something else until fall?
Also, the last garden I planted was in Mississippi, and now I’m in Seattle - I’m not sure how much of a fall growing season we have here, so that might reflect on the taste of the summer brussel sprouts.
Nah, I wouldn’t rip them out–especially if they are otherwise doing well… but I would do another planting in the late summer (as far away from the current plantting as possible!) and try again.
You might try intercropping your sprouts with something that aphids don’t like, although it’s too late this season. Ever since I started planting tons of of onions and garlic, which aphids don’t like (they also don’t like fennel, which I also grow, but not with my vegetables), my insect problems have declined dramatically. (I also use lots of diatomaceous earth, which is great for slugs and creepy-crawlies, but unfortunately not with aphids.)
Since I’m in Berkeley, an autumn freeze won’t be a problem here… and summer temperatures are too temperate to destroy them for me, I think. I’ll just be pleased to end up with any sprouts at all!
I have seen a few ladybugs still hanging around, it turns out: I did release them at dusk onto a watered area.
Maybe I’ll try interplanting some onions like Yossarian suggested- I already have some growing in the next bed over, so I could just transplant some from there. The brussels sprouts bed is flanked by a bed of onions, and a couple of huge cherry tomato plants, neither of which have been molested by any blights- picky little bastards, aren’t they? My other hope is that Jackmannii is right, and that the majority of my leaf damage was coming from the caterpillars, which are so much easier to find and pick off individually.
Being an avid rose gardener I have had my share of problems with aphids. What I found worked really well was to water the plants with a mixture of just plain dish soap and water. I put it in my sprayer and really soaked the plants with it. It just fried the little buggers and did not hurt my plants at all. In about 2 weeks I would see a few bugs back so I would hit them again.
God I hate aphids! They took down two of my most beautiful pepper plants when I was in Oregon. I just couldn’t get rid of those fuckers. Then they got into one of my pepper plants in Missouri. I was so happy that I was finally going to get a plant to survive the winter, then in March they just took over. I tried some soapy water, but that seemed to just destroy all the leaves. Now my proud pepper plant is a sickly looking bundle of branches with a few leaves. It’s getting better, but the new pepper plant looks much better.
I’m all for pesticides, but I don’t know what I can use on plants I’m going to eat.
I’m battling aphids too. We have three Manitoba maples in our back yard, and they are riddled with aphids. The problem with aphids in trees is that the honeydew falls like rain and everything in the yard is sticky.
Still, I’m going to see what can be done with insecticidal soap. The trees aren’t too tall, and I should be able to get at many of the aphids.
I just returned from a four-day trip to Dallas to find my cabbages full of holes and covered in the nasty, green droppings of the Imported Cabbage Worm. Five days ago, they had a few holes in the leaves but otherwise looked fine…
I suspect my solution will just be to say “fuck it,” and dig them up.