Don’t think it’s worth spraying down with neem oil or something at this point.
It’s only its second year, the buds are just forming, and I wasn’t expecting to do much with them. If I’m gonna try brewing a batch of beer the first will be with some store bought dried hops to get the feel of things first.
On the plus side, I did get a decent haul of bush beans, a couple dozen are over ripe though.
I believe a lot of garden shops carry lady bugs. At least the ones in my area did a few weeks ago. They may be seasonal.
There is ladybugs around, I think I’ll just let nature do its thing and hopefully next year everything is better balanced.
Last year the voles ate the stems the last week of flowering, so got nothing than as well, that’s life.
You can order ladybugs to eat the aphids. No need to use any kind of spray.
It takes a lot of patience but these can be knocked off with spraying each leaf with water and gently rubbing the bugs off. Try doing it three days in a row and you’ll probably see a big difference.
1 part Sunlight Soap to 50 parts water in a garden pump spray bottle will fix that, just spray it every evening for a few weeks to make sure you killed them all.
Next season look into Korean Natural Farming techniques.
You’re already into fermentation so it’s right up your alley. But since a lot of it is around feeding local beneficial microbes, it’s maybe a little late to brew something up for immediate use, but you might have something in a few days.
I have had some good luck with heavily diluted mint dr bronner’s soap. I had a few plants heavily infested with aphids and a good spray down got rid of them and the mint kept the aphids away the rest of the season. I did this only on the more shaded plants that didn’t build a strong ladybug population.
Lost Coast Plant Therapy FTW
