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Get Rid Of Aphids on Your Plants

Get rid of Aphids (also known as plant lice or plant louse) on your plants.

What are Aphids? They are soft body, sap-sucking insects, and many different species (around 600 in Canada) with various colours including green, black, grey, yellow and more exist.

They are very tiny insects that will devour your plant's leaves, stems and flowers.

Aphids will also pass along plant viruses to other plants in your garden once they devour your plant and move on to the next one.

Aphids have a very fast reproduction rate and are sometimes born pregnant. They can produce several generations in one growing season.

If you have Aphids it’s a great indicator of an unbalanced fertility and most commonly is an excess of nitrogen.

If you're not sure if it’s aphids attacking your plant, look for these signs:

Curling, damages or yellow leaves
A sticky substance called Honeydew is left on the plant and can drop on anything below it and it attracts ants
Black branches and leaves can be caused from the Honeydew which develops into a sooty mold
Deformed flowers and fruit

How to Get Rid of Aphids

Here are some ways of killing Aphids and removing them from your plants.

· Rub the plant with your fingers – because they have soft bodies, just rubbing them will kill the Aphids and scare away any that you miss

· Blast the leaves with water – spraying the top and underside of the leaves will knock the Aphids off the plant

· Insecticidal soap – mix a small amount of Dawn dish detergent with water and apply with a sponge or spray bottle

· Applying Neem oil with pump sprayer will help get rid of Aphids

· Another solution to getting rid of Aphids is mixing 1/3 white vinegar and 2/3 water and spraying it on the plants

· Place pieces of banana peel on the ground around anything that has aphids, they don’t like the gases that come from the peeling

· Sprinkle flour on the plant will cause constipation in the Aphids and therefore killing them

· Sprinkling calcium around base of your plants will keep aphids away

· Release an Aphid killer which are beneficial insects – ladybug, green lacewing into your garden on infected plants

· Place a piece of aluminum foil around base of plants causing light to bounce around on the underside of leaves repelling aphids; it’s also more light for the plants

· Grow healthy and happy plants will also help keep garden pests away

As you can see, there are a lot of different ways to get rid of Aphids. I have rubbed the plant with my gloved fingers and sprayed the plants with a strong spray of water and both have worked great.

Preventing an Aphid Attack

To prevent an Aphid attach in your garden, try these steps:

Ladybugs, green lacewing or parasitic wasps are beneficial insects to your garden. To attract them plant nectar rich plants near the infected plants
Nasturtium plant is great to plant around broccoli as it destroys the taste of the sap
Garlic, onions and chives repel aphids from roses and vegetables