Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

yesterday I bumped one of my rose bushes and a whole heap of aphids fell off. so I thought hmmm wonder if the fish would like them. Ants farm aphids for their sweet honeydew so they must be quite tasty. So I got a plastic placemat , put it under a branch and shook. It was very easy to collect a whole heap of aphids quickly as they don't cling to the plants strongly .
The silver perch didn't quite take to them with gusto but when I came back 10 mins later the aphids were all gone, so I assume the fish ate them unless they managed to crawl out...
The chooks however went nuts over them even though they are tiny.



aphids collected from 1 branch

Wish i could kill these &*@&ers

Hey Gorotsuki,

Need anymore live fish food?... you can stop by my place anytime and knock yourself out!

I hate these rose bushes, I'm hoping if I neglect them enough the Minister for War and Finances will ask me to pull them out.
I normally give them a dose or two of Neem oil in spring if they start getting aphids, but I've run out of my Neem concentrate I scored years ago and I'm not paying $24 or whatever it is Bunnings is asking for the poxy little 100ml bottle of Econeem... so the rose bushes will have to fend for themselves.

Cheers.

One more pic for good measure.

You could just hit those rose plants with the hose and knock them off, but I am guessing you really dont care

The uglier they are the more likely it is that the boss will want them gone!... I didn't even cut them back this winter... I try and get away with it every year but with me being a Horticulturalist and all, there's always some big mouth questioning my commitment to the gardening, like the Outlaws for example:
"Gee, it's getting a bit late in the year, you should've really trimmed them back by now shouldn't you?"...

But this year I haven't had any big mouth interlopers get in the way of my best laid plans!... by the middle of summer the boss will be commenting on how ugly they are this year, and I'll be able to respond with:

"Yep, I think they're passed their used by date, I reckon it best I rip them out!"

i had afids on my citrus trees 2 weeks ago and after a quick trip to canberra (8 days) they are gone ... lucky me

i hate rose bushes infact i have a great dislike of any plant that is so spitefull that i need gloves to touch

i do have a climbing rose on the side fence but that is only because im afraid that if i remove it the fence will fall down

good luck with the evil plan my father inlaw tied his rose to the 4 wheel drive and when he drove off they came right out problem solverd

CHeers
pete

Two of our four rose bushes have turned into climbing roses, they've suckered from the root stock... I tell you what, if you were to plant that stuff all along a fence line that you wanted secured... aint nobody coming over that fence!...
not without a lot of blood and screaming anyways! ... and the suckers grow at about 6 inches a day!

If life gives you roses, make stuff out of rosewood.
Those aphids look plumb yummy! Weird, but I have started to view the pest infestations from the point-of-view of the ladybugs and other welcome predators... That's a buffet spread if ever I saw one.
I had Cilantro, and aphids all over my lettuce, but soon there came these...

I have all these good bug attracting plants. I should really get around to planting those seeds lol.