After more traveling for both pleasure and work I finally found some time to finish planting the seedlings I purchased at the end of last month and do some general gardening. Even though we've had some chilly weather, Brendan and I both spent the early afternoon playing in the garden today--he replanted some of our succulents (his favorite plants in the garden) and I got our new kale in the ground and moved a couple unhappy plants to (hopefully) better locations.
Because the Toscano kale from last season did so well in our yard I put in another six-pack, along with a new variety that is supposed to get red in cold weather, but turns green when cooked. I cut down the leggy stalks of last season's Toscano and hopefully it will come back in again this year (Dad recommends that I cut them off, the person I talked to at BHN said to replace them with new seedlings, so we’ll see what happens!). To continue to try to salvage our clay soil I worked in last year’s mulch and added a full bad of WonderGrow compost. Hopefully this will help them continue to be pretty pest-resistant (while the Toscano was quite hardy it did attracted aphids a couple of times). I will have to continue to be on the lookout for slugs and snails though since they feasted on the pumpkin in the same plot and had already started to munch on the seedlings before I got them in the ground.
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How do you control your aphids? I've had them a few times on indoor plants and couldn't do much except put the plants outside and let ladybugs and birds eat them. I've heard you can mist the plants with water plus a few drops of olive oil and soap, but I don't know if that actually works.
ReplyDeleteI’ve had the most success with removing the aphids and then spraying the plants as a preventative measure. I use a strong spray of water (as strong as I think the plant can handle without damaging it) to blast away the aphids (you sometimes have to use your fingers to physically remove them too), and then use a soap spray (like Safer brand products) to kill any I didn’t get and to help make sure they don’t come back. I spray once every couple of days until I’m sure they are gone.
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