Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

ABC gardening sheet on home made bug killing recipes etc ..... DO NOT use soap or detergent ..... in one recipe they used fish emulsion to replace the dtergent/soap ,, to help it stick to plants.
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2607562.htm

Thats what they are saying dipel and seasol good stuff

+1

Regarding thumb and index: what if you don't catch em early enough?

Also regarding little green bugs being farmed by ants, I assumed were aphids, and big black bugs I'm told are aphids... Which is or are they both? Why do the blacks cause so much damage and the green not? Why do the black wash off easy, yet the green are almost impossible to budge?

KP try an atomizer on squirt

do you mean an automated spray? or a manual spray bottle? Or something crazy? Squirt em with what? I fail to see how spraying them with water will have any effect, except to knock em off.

Try some chilli and garlic, mushed up. Mix with water, leave overnite and then spray. If the plants are heavily infested I'd rather pull them out and bury or burn to keep the buggers away from the rest of the plants. Do not, as stated before, put any soap in with the mixture. You'll need to sieve to stop your spray bottle clogging.

I've used this before on heavily infested plants and it certainly keeps the numbers down. Won't completely stop them though. They are hardy little buggers......once they get going they're hard to stop without nasty chemicals.

Kp, you only have to damage them a bit, broken legs will kill them.
This is what I do when the roses are infested

As already stated above -

Dipel, and a very strong seasol mix sprayed onto the leaves.

Leave for two days, then hose off with a decent spray.

The aphids and eggs get stuck in the goo, die, and are washed off by the water. Its the best way that I have found. Takes a bit of dedication for a couple of weeks or so to get rid of all of them, but it works.

Why wash it off? That bit sounds like effort...

and nobody is yet able to explain the little green vs big black bug issue. what are the green ones being herded by ants if not aphids?

Unless... are aphid eggs green and hard to remove? They are so small I may have been confused.

I believe the green ones are the young ones?!?!

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Sounds like a good solution to me OBO.....

solution... heh heh heh...

Wouldn't be a chemical engineer would you Kuda?