Are they outside or in?

ladybugs...tons of them...the only "real" cure for aphids. All the other stuff suggested is mostly nonsense. I spent over $50 on those supposed cures/fixes last year and the aphids just laughed at me and kept on munchin'.

I use a spray bottle of water and put some dish soap in it and spray the under side of the leaves. You have to be diligent with this. I had an infestation last year and every day I did this and mashed all the ones I could see with my fingers and they went away after about a week. I also steppped up the fertilizer frequency to 1/4 strength everytime I watered instead of full strength every two weeks or so.

Look, I hate aphids as much as you do, but you don't need to use toxic insecticides to control them. First, you would have to spray it where they will actually eat it, and then you hope they eat enough to kill them before it gets washed off by the rain, etc.

I have had a lot of success eradicating aphids, white fly, even Japanese beetles using non-toxic (to humans) organic contact poisons. I got the following recipe a couple years ago from Organic Gardening magazine.

This alcohol and herb oil combination will kill any type of insect or arachnoid it contacts in about 30 seconds (including Japanese beetles and 3" Florida roaches), but it evaporates fairly rapidly and must be resprayed if infestations reappear.

To make one quart of spray: 1 Cup rubbing alcohol, 3 Cups water, ½ tsp peppermint oil, clove oil, or garlic oil (or 2 tsp of the spirits), 1 tsp insecticidal soap or mild liquid soap (Dr Bronners or organic laundry soap  if you use dish soap like Ivory only use ½ tsp). First mix the oil and soap for dispersion, then add the alcohol water mixture. Shake well, and spray both sides of leaves with any kind of hand pump sprayer like you wash windows with. Saturate your plant, this stuff won't hurt it.

If your plants are small bedding plants, you can cover the soil with aluminum foil and dip the plant upside down in the solution in a tumbler or small bucket.

Works for me, the only thing I ever use to control bugs.

Good luck - Rick

Good info, Rick. I'm willing to try anything to get rid of those devils! =) I'll give it a try the first time I see some...not sure when i'll be able to order my ladybugs anyways.

Alright, Rick. I'll try your magic potient and will report back to on this post.

We had really bad aphid infestation on our peppers a few weeks ago. We had about 40 plants growing indoors, and then picked up a plant at a store. The aphids apparently came in with that plant, and quickly multiplied all over the place.

We tried pepper wax, which does say that it kills aphids (amongst other things). It did nothing.

So then we tried insecticidal oil. Nothing. Then we did the insecticidal soap. Nothing. I mean, these products did NOTHING for the problem.

At this point, we were getting worried that our entire pepper crop would be destroyed.

So we decided to throw out the organic gardening concept for just a moment, and I went over to Home Depot and picked up some real insecticide. I think the brand was Ortho; the product was Garden Vegetable Bug Killer or something.

It killed all the aphids instantly, and I haven't seen a single bug on our plants since I sprayed.

On the downside, it did stain some of the leaves, and some of the sprayed spots have turned white and are apparently dead (not the whole leaves; but areas on them - completely chlorofill-free now). Others have blackish spots, but those are gradually improving. None of the plants look as attractive as they originally did, although there is new growth that seems to be OK. I'm concerned that this may ultimately affect their health and fruit-producing ability, but I really don't know yet.

But anyway, the aphids are dead, and that was definitely the priority, because it was almost turning into a swarm, and there was no doubt that if we didn't take dramatic action, all would be lost.

megachili: More good info! I like all your "nothing"'s .;) Makes me feel like i'm not the only one who tried a bunch of things for them that failed...lol