From time to time I have some type of bug in the garden. Over the years my best prevention for bugs has been blasting my plants (every night when it’s really hot) with water. I’ve quit spraying quite so much since nights are a little cooler. But this week I noticed one of my squash plant blooms were covered with aphids. I’m not seeing any ladybugs these days, so aphids can take over pretty fast. I just attached one of the hose ends that allows me to adjust to a pretty powerful stream, and I really hit the plant from all sides and under leaves if necessary. I’m not watering the plants, I’m strictly hosing them down. Most bugs thrive on hot and dry, so you create the opposite conditions to a certain extent. Spraying the plant and surrounding area cools it and wets it down. Early in the summer I had one bell pepper plant that was covered with red spider mites (you’ll see fine webbing and the growth is stunted). Typically I get rid of a plant with spider mites, but I tried blasting it morning and night and it actually worked! It’s producing peppers now.
When the bugs are pretty stubborn, I use soap spray early in the morning or late in the evening. Safer Soap or a good biodegradable dish soap both work well. I have an old Ortho hose end sprayer I use. I can fill the container with soap and adjust the opening of the spray (how much soap comes through when I spray). Usually, I keep the opening pretty large – I like to see soap bubbles on the plant. I haven’t looked to see what’s out there lately, but hopefully they still make them. Make sure you only do this early or late, because the heat of the day will kill a plant when it’s sprayed with soap.
I did get onion, dill, and parsley seeds planted today. Tomorrow I’m going to plant lettuce. Of course I have several kinds I plant, some do better than others.