I hope someone does have some good advice, because I have the same problem. At least I think they're aphids - these are very small white/yellowish little buggers about the size of a flea. They don't seem to try to escape when I pick them off with the point of a steak knife, but that's not the solution I'm looking for. ;)

I've been using Garden Safe "Fruit & Vegetable Insect Spray" (Pyrethrins 0.1%, Canola Oil 1%) and it hasn't worked. I'm not even sure if it's safe to use as much as I have been (every few days). I may try the Concern "Insect Killing Soap" found at chileplants.com if I don't hear better advice here.

Sorry, I meant Pyrethrins 0.01%

Anyway, I found this in another thread:

"1/2 tsp dish soap to one gallon water will take care of them naturally. Spray once and then again in five days, and see if that works. Don't overdo it though. Just water alone will knock them off, but not kill the buggers."

Here is a link that might be useful: Pepper folage problems thread

Tried the dishsoap and tried the dishoap with citrus water and the 7 dust but they are making meal of my babies.
I just don't want to keep buying.trying things that are going to clean out my wallet and not work.
~Jessi

This is the first year I've encountered an aphid problem on my veggies. They're usually found on our roses outdoors.
I noticed quite a number of them on my peppers the other day. The follwing method was used myself 2 days ago and all those little SOB's are brown and DEAD!
In a ½ liter spray bottle, squeeze a small amount of liquid dish detergent and add approx. ½ to 1 tsp. of crushed red hot chile pepper (finer the better). You can also steep some crushed red pepper tea to use in place of the powder/flakes.
Once ingredients are added fill w/ warm water, cover the spray bottle and shake well.
Spray onto leaves, stems, flowers and buds making sure to get the underside of leaves and between tender new leaves.

This worked remarkably well for me and after close inspection, not one aphid was left standing as of yesterday.

Just thinking about it, next time (hope there isn't a next time) I may try store bought hot sauce mixed w/ soap and water. It should work equally as well.

I just called a local nursery here and they recommended Safer Soap, its a spray insecticidal soap that they use. They also recommended lady bugs, which I will probably go for later in the year to munch on any more aphids. But the ones I have now I want to be rid of.
Anyone here use either of these methods?

how does the red pepper spray work in the long run? I don't want something I need to apply every few days.

I had a really bad problem with aphids myself recently. I went and bought an incecticidal soap, sprayed my plants till they were dripping, let dry, and let loose the lady bugs. This was last sunday, and I inspect every night and never see more than 4 of them. I still have plenty of lady bugs hanging around, and some of them have laid eggs.

So I would recomend whatever you deside to spray them with, get lady bugs too - what one misses, the other will get!

Dust with flour. It clogs their pores and they die.

I just sprayed them all down w/ your recipe. Hopefully that'll take care of them for now. :)

BTW - Thank goodness I only have 6 plants! I can't imagine spraying dozens of them or my wrist would fall off! lol

Here is a link that might be useful:

Encourage Aphid eating beneficials with planting:

Ladybugs: fennel, Dill, Cosmos, Coreopsis, Tansy, Yarrow, Fennel, and even Dandelion...

Parasitic Wasps and Hoverflies: Sweet Alyssum, Monarda, Bugleweed (Ajuga),Thyme, Lavender,

Lacewings: Sunflower, Tansy, Cosmos, Dill, Yarrow

They all like a source of water too...a shallow pan or plant sauser with stones works well

Vera

Unfortunately, ants are not always the cause of the problem. I'm in an apartment, and I grow on my balcony. I've never seen a single ant, but boy, did I have a lot of aphids!

Yeah I have ants galore and have yet to find anything ot get rid of them either! They will go away for a few days and then they will be back by the thousands. After we tilled the garden (and no, my peppers that are getting attacked aren't in there) we had about 20 ant hills.
Any suggestions for ants? We put out granules and they still hang around.

Ditto the ant thing, I only grow on the balcony, and I get aphids up the wazoo, they do have wings after all. I haven't got them yet, but have 47 plants, my wrist hurts just thinking about all the spraying I will be doing. Some here have hundreds of plants, good luck to ya!

As for getting rid of ants, try chalk. Yes, good 'ol chalk. Go find the stuff they use to mark the sidelines for a football field, or used to anyway, and dump a 1/2 cup of it on each ant hill, making sure you get it inside too. For some reason, they don't like to climb over it. For a picnic, take a stick of chalk for the blackboard, and draw two circles, one inch apart, with it on each leg of the table, and they won't attack your grub. I have no idea why, but this works.

Tom

Getting rid of aphids isn't a 'one time' solution in my experience. A little dishsoap in a spray bottle always works for me with the following additional points:

1. Spray for 3-5 consecutive nights. Aphids lay eggs like crazy, so you need to hit them a couple of times to make sure you've wiped them out.

2. Spray at night. The dishsoap can cake on to the leaves if the plant is in direct, warm sunlight when you spray it.

3. Make sure you completely spray off the plant once the aphids are killed. You want to make sure you rinse any residual soap off of the leaves to let maximum sunlight hit the plant (also applies to dust build up on indoor plants).

Hope that helps,
Scott
urbanChiles.com

Hmmmm, since I spray Daconil every 5-7 days, wonder if putting a little dishsoap in the mix would help?

mix vegatable oil with water in a spray bottle and spray your plants, the oil smothers them. do it every 3 days then every 6 days is OK. I use about 1 table spoon to the pint. Shake it alot.

If you have a bad infestation of aphids and the home brews and insecticide soap is not working, try ROTENONE/PYRETHRUM spray. It is completely organic and can be sprayed the day before harvest. ITis non-selective so it will kill good and bad insects. Since it breaks down with a few hours in sunlight, it will take additional applications to kill the egss that hatch.

Ok, I think I really messed this up. I used the suggested recipe of a little dishsoap, red pepper and water to get rid of my aphids. Unfortunately, all of my jalepeno leaves have either fallen off or look like they will do so in the next day or so. The stem looks ok, but not sure what I did wrong on the recipe that killed off my plants. They may have been too small (only about 5 inches tall). I have some back-ups that are already going at about 2 inches with a few leaves, so I will at least get a few peppers this season. The good news is that I might be able to convince my wife that the soap is too toxic for me to do dishes tonight!

I have quit using soap on my plant leaves. The soap burns them. The oil in water works wonders. I either mineral oil or any type of veggie oil with good results. Shake the bottle alot. It s cheap and safe.

Just an FYI, I recently used the insecticidal soap and it worked, but they came back frequently.

I am using the Safer Insecticidal soap on my indoor plants. I spray them about once weekly, whenever I see aphids. I'm convinced that each generation of aphids is getting more puny, but maybe it's wishful thinking. I cover the soil so that I am not drenching the soil, I dont know if it is good or bad to do that. So far the palnts are holding on to most of their leaves. No fertilizer during the winter - it seems to stimulate the aphids (just an observation).

i use neem oil. 1/2 tsp to 1qt water

id much rather be ingesting stuff sprayed with neem oil rather than pyrethrin.

Safer insecticidal soap is the one I am using too. I am a teacher and after I came back from winter break the plants were COVERED with aphids. One of my scotch bonnets looks like it is going to die. I am going to hit it with a full dose of safer with veggie oil and cayenne pepper mixed in, hopefully that zaps them good. Any thoughts on this being safe or unsafe for the plants?

Only thind that ever worked for me

I use Safer Insecticidal soap, or you can make your own with 1 TBS natural liquid soap (like Dr. Bonner's) in 1 quart water. Don't spray in sunlight or else the leaves will burn. Make sure you thoroughly coat all leaf undersides and stems. Aphids were a problem when the plants were young and just transplanted (maybe stressed?), but I don't see them anymore. I also have lot of ladybugs and spiders.

I have been trying to get rid of aphids since I brought my peppers indoors. Usually we get ladybugs coming indoors, but I have not seen any this year. December was extremely cold and snowy, so it may have kept them hibernating.

I have tried pyretheins and pyola, but the aphids keep coming back and I do not want to keep spraying poisons to my plants. I tried mixing a drop of vegetable oil into water, but it killed the leaves from the sprayed plants. I may have but too much oil.

Now I found ready made Garden Safe soap spray and I am hoping it will do the job. This spray smells like the pine soap, which most chile growers in Finland use against aphids. I have not found similar soap here in US. It does not have similar solvent smell like pinesol.

Smaller plants I have been also taking to shower to remove the aphids, but they keep breeding, so it only reduces their number temporarily.

I have noticed something interesting with a Tepin pepper, which has velvety fuzzy leaves; the aphids do not bother it even the plants on both sides of it have been infested.

Soap note, it must be the old fashioned dish soap, baby or horse shampoo, not to exceed 1 tbsp of soap perf gal of water.

Anti Bactererial, PT 409, any concetrated formula will make your plants sick.

If the bugs are an off white, they might be whiteflies. Dishsoap is not enough to kill them

Aphids and whiteflies are an every week to 10 day chore of killing them from the time the frost is out of the ground until the ground is frozen again.

Aphids can fly 120 ft on a windless day, carried many miles in a 5 mph breeze, every born prego female produces 200 more every 2 weeks.

I read all your comments because I too have an aphid problem. My mom said tobacco worked so I took up smoking, that doesn't work. Then I tried to breed Super-Ladybugs with soap blood and coated in chili, that doesn't work. Then I put them outside in the 10 degree weather here in Massachusetts... that works.

P.S: Now I need a remedy for nicotine addiction. But hey, at least I don't need to worry about aphids!

For ants or any other bugs that crawl on the ground, I use Diatomaceous Earth. It is organic and when the insects crawl on it, it cuts there legs up, they dehydrate and then they die.
For ants that were IN my vegetable garden bed, I stir the mound up to get them active then dust the mound to get them to walk on it, you might have to do this over a 2 or 3 day period because not all of the ants will come out to walk on the Diatomaceous Earth which is a fine powder.I had thousands of ants and by the 3rd day they were all dead and/or they moved elsewhere. You can get it at any of the home centers and it costsd about $8 for a 3 pound bag and it can be used year after year if you store it well and keep it dry.

I had aphid problem before I used dish washer to Bayerôs insecticide and fungicide finally both my plants and aphids were killed. I did not blame to anyone because I did not follow the instruction correctly.

This year I am going to use traditional method of sprinkle dry ash. Just try if you have ash, but I am not sure and I do not have practical experiences.

Caelian

Just be careful with the ladybugs because in the fall they want a nice warm place to live like ................YOUR HOUSE. If some one person finds a good remedy for killing these little green buggers. PLEASE post, they are killing my beautiful rose plants.
Thanks

Last year, I had a tremendous aphid infestation as soon as I moved into a new house and set up the garden. For weeks, I was fighting it with every available method out there and I was baffled as to how they were back on my plants each following day! finally after many weeks of playing the soap spray game, I finally discovered the real problem.... It wasnt ants.... It was another neighboring landscape plant. In this case it was a Lupine bush. Ive never seen such an insane aphid infestation. There were millions of them, maybe hundreds of millions!!! no kidding. So I moved into quarantine and removal mode. cut the plant down, while i did aphids were literally raining down on my head! any shake to the plant and thousands of them would fall off so as im cutting the thing, aphids and their dooky were falling all over me. . I mean this was insane, i was at war and I was not about to lose this one. I pulled the giant greenwaste container out to the location of the plant and tried to stuff it in there with as many of the buggers still on the plant as possible. I had to jump on the thing to push the plant down and aphids were falling everywhere!!!! But mostly contained to the location of the plant. I managed to get the whole thing in there barely, then I took the greenwaste container to the street and left the cover on all the way. They took the container the next day and the majority of the problem was gone immediately. Next I moved into spray mode and sprayed down the whole yard with soap for the next 3-5 days. on the location of the infected plant i used the nuclear toxic stuff. problem gone. now its just normal maintenance. I have some that find their way into my greenhouse when the doors are open, quick soap spray 2 days in a row and theyre gone.

I just learned some stuff about aphids. I kept trying different stuff and couldnt get rid of em! Soap and water will get the aphids u can see. I just realised i have a lil problem called root aphids. And im seeing the only way to get rid of these bastards is by gasoline a match and new start!