Fighting Aphids the Natural Way

Aphids on Kale

After the 10-month drought and 100-degree heat finally ended in Central Texas, and a very measly spring vegetable harvest, we were excited to plant our fall garden in early October in our Austin home. This time, instead of trying to plant every kind of vegetable that can possibly be grown during the corresponding season, we decided to go with a more limited variety of hearty plants. We received a great tip from Resolution Gardens on planting vegetables that are not only seasonal, but also appropriate for the local climate and soil. Here is their recommended list of vegetables for October:

• Vegetable seeds – Beets, Carrot, Mustard, Onion, Garden Pea, Radishes, Spinach, Turnip (early October: Chinese Cabbage, Collards, Garlic, Lettuce) 
• Vegetable plants – Chinese Cabbage, Collards (and other Greens), Lettuce, Spinach, Turnip, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Chinese Greens (Lettuce and Spinach can be planted throughout the fall if they are given frost protection). 

We ended up planting carrot, chard and radish seeds, along with Chinese cabbage, broccoli, spinach, and kale seedling transplants from the The Natural Gardener. The first few weeks, everything was sprouting beautifully, until some of our plants – particularly the cabbage and kale – started developing holes and looking pale and withered. Upon looking closely and inspecting underneath the leaves, we saw mounds of these little dark green insects shaped like sesame seeds. I snipped off a kale leaf, dropped it in a plastic baggie, and we returned to The Natural Gardener to identify these bugs.

Once there, at first glance, one of the staff identified the problem as a combination of munching caterpillars (causing holes) and juice-sucking aphids (causing leaves to grow pale and withered). But just to be sure, they placed my specimen beneath their ultra-high-powered-digital-microscope. Who knew these little things had such life and personality! The one we saw in the microscope happened to be a loner hanging out on a remote section of the leaf, but normally aphids tend to gather and pile up in tiny areas by the dozens. And if that weren’t bad enough, they are born already pregnant. (Sort of alien-like, if you ask me.) These little buggers can multiply faster than rabbits!

Homemade Organic Pest Control for Aphids

At any rate, we didn’t want to use chemical pesticides, in an effort to maintain our garden completely organic and sustainable. So the folks at The Natural Gardener prescribed 1 quart of water mixed with 1 to 2 teaspoons of soft liquid (non-detergent) soap. They instructed us to apply the mixture right onto the leaf – it has to get on the aphids in order to suffocate and kill them. But those little suckers are stubborn. Even post-mortem, they cling to the leaf, so unless you want them their rotting carcasses on your vegetables, you still have to spray-wash them away after they die. (But don’t spray so hard that you pummel and drown your poor plants with cascades of water.)

Unfortunately, the soap and water mixture did not really help at first. As an alternative to Seventh Generation liquid soap, we tried Dr. Bronner’s lavender liquid soap. The aphids simply kept reappearing. (Fortunately, the caterpillars never came back after we applied one treatment of certified organic Thuricide.) The good news is that eventually, the aphids did finally disappear, but only after we lost both of our cabbage plants and one of our four kale plants, and left a slight bit of damage on the remaining plants.

I can’t say we did our best, though. There are many things we didn’t try. We didn’t try ladybugs. We didn’t try luke warm water (we had used room-temperature water). We didn’t try Neem oil. We didn’t try other liquid recipes recommended on various sites. We didn’t inspect as religiously as we should have. Some of our gardener friends from the farmers market have told us that if you go the organic route, you have to be out there every day and be persistent in fending off the pests. Sometimes, you have to resort to hand-plucking off the bugs if you want to get down and dirty, in order to win the battle.

Hand Spraying Aphids with Soap and Water (and then you still have to pluck off the dead ones)

Let me know if you try the soap and water solution we used from The Natural Gardener and whether it was effective in getting rid of your aphids. Or try some of these other natural aphid control solutions:

• How to Get Rid of Aphids 
• The Nerdy Gardener’s Organic Aphid Control Methods 
• Homemade Aphid Control – A Natural Way to Kill Aphids

Happy aphid killing!