April 6, 2017

Good morning, Aphids if you garden you will have aphids. His year I have been for the most part aphid free. Because I use fabric over my beds, this creates a perfect habitat for them. For the most part I have used cold pressed neem oil to control them.

Most years when the aphids enter stage right there are no beneficial insects to be found.

I have found that the brassica family (broccoli, cauliflower, kale…) are real magnets to aphids. I had uncovered the last of my broccoli to see if I could draw in some beneficial insects. And yes, they came.

I have found there to be a nice population of lady beetles and some aphidius wasps.

Recently I started to see aphids in my chard / kale bed. Conveniently it is located next to my broccoli bed. If it were not for the guinea fowl I would just leave the bed uncovered and let these critters populate themselves into the chard bed. If I want to harvest chard or kale I cannot do this. So, I started with a catch and release program. I have been doing this for a few weeks now. I concentrated the release in a couple of areas with hopes they would expand out on their own.

In the past I have ordered lady beetles to release in the garden. I have found that most of these implants just leave. Making me wonder if the cost was worth it.

There also is the problem with beneficial insects in greens crops. Inadvertently the good guys are harvested with the greens. With my catch and release program I have been checking the leaves very carefully before cutting. This has slowed the harvest, but I am beginning to see the fruits of my labor.

The epicenters where I initially released the lady beetles are mostly aphid free. And these areas are expanding out. Because I have been checking the leaves I noticed a single aphidius wasp cocoon in between the two lady beetle populations. This was two harvests back. Last week this single cocoon became nearly 18 to two dozen.  With the lady beetles, I am seeing multiple generations from adults to several stages of nymphs to the little orange seed cases underneath the leaves.

The one thing that has been difficult for me is to let the aphids be and let the catch and release take its course. In some cases, they are thick. Because of this I have been washing the leaves. Washing does not remove all the aphids, I apologize for this. I do believe that with the presence of some bugs is proof that it is edible by humans. Kinda like a proof of purchase sticker.

So, once the aphids are totally under control, there very likely will be some of my cleaning crew on your veggies. All I can ask is that you give them a place to feed and then go forth and propagate.