Was so happy to see my sad, under-soiled tomato plant putting out flowers, but it's also attracted aphids! I'm too poor to even afford pesticides, and was planning on growing organic anyways, but I'm not getting any help with pest predators from the surrounding apartment environment (cropped lawn grass and dandelions)
How do I attract natural predators of plant pests, like hoverflies, parasitoid wasps, ladybeedles and others without just buying a pack from a store? I want to engage in the war on bugs on the side of bugs, but the bugs that eat the bugs that eat my plants, for essentially a budget of $0. How the hell am I supposed to do this...
Oh and if anyone's wondering, I bought these plants from the farmer's market on EBT because they were cheap but I can't buy any dirt or bigger pots. So I'm working with the best I got until I get a job and a paycheck
Aphids have two forms. A flying form and and a wingless colony forming form.
Those are wingless colony forming form. All you have to do is run your finger along the flower/ stem to remove them. Keep it up for a few weeks and the predators will eventually find them. Once you have some predators around the aphids will go away for the rest of the year.
or a brush too is efficient for this.
also, if there is a colony of ants nearby that are protecting those aphids, predators can't approach. You have to deal with ants as well :/
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A little paintbrush is perfect for doing this. Some people like using a spray bottle, but ive found it doesn't knock them off as reliably
This is interesting, I did not know the Ants had a relationship with the Aphids.
We get Preying Mantis around here and I always cheer for them, but I wonder each creatures role now.
I did this last year. Just posted at the bed for a bit every few days squishing them. It was effective.