Wow! I thought my tomato plant looked bad. Good luck with that mob!

Yikes!!! I'd be stocking up on insecticidal soap!

I sprayed them down pretty good already with Insecticidal soap. Gonna hose 'em off later this evening. Then check for survivors tomorrow. I got about one more dose left in my sprayer. Maybe make up a home solution with soap if that isn't enough. The stuff worked for my indoor overwintered peppers but the infestation wasn't nearly this bad.

I have every generation going on from babies to teenagers to mom and pop. This picture is a couple hours after I doused them with IS. Not sure if they are dead or not.

Oh, and I have a container of Sevin if push comes to shove.

Local heathen, checking in.
If the last round of insecticidal soap don't work, then Sevin, and lots of it.

Save the peppers!

After you get them nuked with whatever it takes buy some green lacewing eggs or larva.
If you think lady bugs are great,wait until lacewing move in.
Lacewings eat a lot more of the bad guys than ladybugs do.
They lay eggs right in the middle of the army of aphids because the larva hatch hungry.
Look up ant lion or green lacewings.

I've never found soap or neem type stuff to be worth anything growing outside.
It only smothers them and isn't very good at that either.
Leaves the source - eggs to hatch.

Here is a link that might be useful: good guy source and info

Hi Bruce,
Woah that's a mess, nuke em and as Smoke stated save the peppers. I got a rose bush next to my peppers, I am now thinking twice about the location of some of my peppers. So far I am following a coworkers method I have buried a circle of Bananas 360 around my rose bush and will be adding garlic. So far noticed the black spots on leaves have not appeared as last year and the little green caterpillar have not stripped all the leaves. Not 100% sold that it will keep the Aphids away, I've seen them but also watched a ladybug hot on their trail, I laughed and walked away. Good to know about lacewing thanks Smoke.

SMoke:
Did I just screw up and kill my lacewing buddies or are these just simply adult Aphids:

Bruce

Ugggg Bruce, not nice.

Just me, others will disagree, but I'd add isopropyl alcohol to your spray at 5% total volume. If the soap don't get them the alcohol might. At 5% it won't hurt the plant.

Those just look like adult aphids ready to swarm onto your peppers to me.

Nuke. Them. All.

You are well past having an aphid problem, currently in confined infestation, and about to go into "Holy crap, they're EVERYWHERE!!!" infestation.

You can sacrifice a bar of soap to the organic gods to appease them later. Right now, save your plants.

Those are aphids.

I've had them all over my tomato plants which were growing right next to my peppers and they never touched the peppers.

I feel your pain. I've been battling the little buggers too. 2 Rounds of Sevin while still in the small pots. I planted a third of my plants in ground last weekend and inspected them tonight. Some look pretty clear. Some still have aphids but not as thick as when they were in pots waiting to plant. Around here once they go in ground it seems to allow the natural predators free reign on them and they are gone. I'll re-inspect during the weekend. Some strains seem to be more infested than others. I'll sure give the lacewings a try after the waiting period for Sevin use has passed. Good luck and keep us posted.

Nuke them with poison,then after the poison isn't as toxic release the hounds(lacewings and or ladybugs).
Your infestation WILL spread to everything if you don't nail the WEEDS/ROSES FIRST.
The Aphids with wings are females that are only there to mate and go elsewhere.
Aphids only keep their wings on an over populated plant.
Momma nature is geared to win.
They fly somewhere then drop their wings (like Termites do).
and lay eggs and spread out to other more fertile areas.

What is cool about Lacewings is the Adults eat pollen and lay eggs anywhere buds were near and they love to lay the eggs in the middle of anything the larva eat.
If you see large Mesquito type insects that are green,don't kill them,they aren't Mesquitos.
I see them mostly cruising around at night.

My favorite indoor Good bug.
The only SUPER DUPER Aphid eater is a wasp (see Tip Top data sheets).
They only attack Aphids and die when they run out of food.
Really cool to watch on your plants.
I use them inside.Great show to watch.
Lots of videos on U Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLtUk-W5Gpk

Wasps aren't the people stinging kind.
ONLY good for Aphids.
If you use them you don't need the poison first.
You'll rum out of Aphids ANYWHERE in your garden before you run out of wasps.
They don't lay eggs in an Aphid that already has eggs in it and the fly everywhere to find new food.
Here in Southern California they last a couple seasons since plants grow year round.We have no winter.

WEll, I wont be around tomorrow until the after noon. I will check the roses then. I rinsed them off with the hose a couple hours ago so if there are any on the plants tomorrow, I will get the Sevin out. Wish the lady bugs were out and about. I have had my overwintered pepper plants out within 15 feet of the roses for about a week now and I don't see any on the peppers. Of course, the overwintered peppers are pretty ragged looking right now and probably not real appetizing to the aphids.
Bruce.
Bruce

Smoke:
Cool video on the wasps. I have seen those things before. They kind of look like a flying ant but you can tell they are in the wasp family. I would have guessed they would sting like any other wasp type critter. i have probably killed a few here and there but no longer.
Bruce

Oh my god, that is scary/creepy... we've had roses on our front lawn for years and that has never happened to any of our plants... hoping aphids don't exist around here and I won't get anything on my vegetables this year...

AgtJenny24: You would be surprised. There are not that easy to see. I didn't even know what an Aphid looked like until I found them on my overwinter peppers last fall. I am sure I have infestations like that before and didn't even know it. I had to look really close to see the little bastards. The photos are pretty close up but they are relatively hard to see with the naked eyes of a 50 year old. Plus they are kind of a pinkish color which matches the redish new growth on the rose bush. BTW: From what I understand, aphids are everywhere. If not, send me your address and I will send you a few....thousand.
Just kidding,
bruce

A couple years back a co-worker had aphids so we researched them and here's a bit of what we found.

North America is home to more than 1,300 species of aphids. Some of them target only one type of plant; others are less particular. They also attack the grass. Your clues that they've arrived: The grass blades turn yellow-orange and grow poorly, and ant hills suddenly appear.

Aphids can be almost any color, but they're all tiny (less than 1/10 inch long), pear-shaped, and usually wingless, with soft bodies and mouths that can pierce right through even the toughest leaves and stems. Aphids are famous for the honeydew they produce (sweet, sticky stuff that ants love so much). If a lot of ant hills develop in yard, good chance of aphids.

In the cold regions, aphids hatch in May and June from eggs laid the previous fall. Then the female gives birth to live nymphs every 2 weeks until the weather turns cold. Some nymphs born late in the summer grow wings as they mature. Then they fly to trees and lay eggs that overwinter in the bark and hatch the following spring.

In early stages, you can dislodge them with a blast of water, but after that you'll need either homemade or store bought insecticidal spray.

Co-worker opted for the homemade spray (water, isopropyl alcohol, ivory soap and mint extract) as well as the yellow sticky traps. She made her own. It was a summer long battle but since (3 years) has been aphid free.

Some gardeners recommend interplanting vegetables with chives, garlic, mints, onions, and petunias to repel aphids. Anise, coriander, nasturtiums, penny-royal, petunias, and southernwood are mentioned for controlling aphids in the orchard.

Do what you need to do to save the Peppers!

Sandy

Well, I have to say that the insecticidal soap worked. I checked them yesterday and again today and all I can find are blackened carcasses. Nothing pink, red, blue, green, etc crawling around.

Oh, and smokemaster, I believe you were spot on with your information on the parasitic wasps. Suddenly I am seeing them all over the place...not sure if they just moved in or if maybe I am just looking for them. I even saw one crawling around the rose bush yesterday when I was inspecting it.

Bruce

Great news Bruce!

ah, don't get your hopes up Bruce. I've been battling them for months. Started with insecticidal soap, then neem oil they kept coming back. I tried Sevin, still came back. I finally gave in and used malathion. guess what, they're back! I give up.
Pam

There is no method that will kill the eggs. Once you get aphids, you have to treat the ones you have then watch for more on basically a daily basis for upwards of two weeks. Soon as you see even one, re-treat.

If you give the hatchlings time to mature and lay their own eggs you have to start all over again.

Spray your insecticidal soap every three days for two weeks. That will break their breeding cycle and get get rid of them.

Of course, the above is conditional upon whether or not there's a nest somewhere close that's not being treated... neighbor???

Didn't work for me, I sprayed over and over again, then I went to neem oil, can't spray that as often, so I sprayed insecticidal soap in between Neem treatments. I'd think they were gone, then they'd be back. I treated like that for 2 months, then I got tired of it and pulled out the malathion. It did the trick for about a month. Don't know where mine are coming from, neighbors don't have anything more than trees and grass (plus, out in the country and the closest neighbor is 500ft away). This is going to be a very bad bug year, it's already a very bad bug year. We were driving home after dark a couple of weeks ago and I've never seen bugs that thick in the headlights, and it sounded like we were driving through a pebble storm.

It sounds like kuvaszlvr is ground-zero for garden pests! Next time I have a problem with aphids, I'm going to blame Pam! LOL

I'm telling ya. We have a bumper crop of aphids too here in KS. I was finishing planting my peppers in the garden last weekend (which I have been battling aphids on for a month).And surprise surprise! Some random wheat which had come up from some mulch I have down for my garlic and onions is loaded with aphids. On the positive side, there were ladybugs around so maybe there's hope. Other peppers I've had out about a week in another patch in the yard look much better in regards to the aphids. I've NEVER had an aphid problem like this year. I've had a garden for years! If they persist I'll get more ladybugs and maybe some lacewings. As I was sorting out what went where I spied a wasp (probably a yellow jacket) working over the leaves on some of my seedlings in what appeared a methodical search for a meal. He got disturbed before i could tell if he was going after aphids. Reading Smokes post above about the other kind of wasp clued me in that the yellow jacket might be looking for aphids vs. looking to eat on the plants or to find a nest site.

HEY! I'm outside of Tulsa! I bet our aphids are coming from KS! ;-) Yeah, we've got a ton of lady bugs too. In fact I brought up some plants to the office and the guy asked why he kept finding lady bugs in his office all of a sudden... I should have gone and collected them to take them back home. ;-)

and tsheets... ;-P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
although I really do feel like ground zero for bugs this year. I've already been pulling off tomato horn worms, I've never seen them this early.

hahaha! Sorry, Pam! I haven't had too many problems yet this year, but, have seen several leaves chewed on on a couple of plants. No sign of the pests, though. Hopefully, it was a transient (or a snack for another friendly). I feel pretty lucky reading all the problems people are already having with bugs.

You definitely are! I have lost a bunch of plants. Big and beautiful, put them out, and within a week 1/2 were gone. A lot of people in the office have had similar problems. A few weeks ago I let one of the dogs out in the middle of the night, the porch was covered in june bugs. I have never seen that many on the porch before. I should have taken a photo. at least we aren't having a tick infestation....... yet.....

I complained about our yo yo weather here this spring, summer temps followed by frosts a few times but they say that it should keep our pest population down this year. They got faked out and made an early appearance only to be hit with freezing temps. Based on the issues a few of you are facing, I take back my previous gripes with the weather.

Sorry you lost a bunch of plants Pam, not nice.

thanks Bill, mother nature always seems to be giving grief, if it's not one thing, it's something else. I hope you guys do luck out and don't have to deal with too many pests. Maybe we'll be lucky and the over abundance of insects will be mostly beneficial insects and not all bad ones. ;-) Hey, at least all the pepper plants I lost were sweet, I didn't lose a single hot pepper, so, it's not all bad. ;-)

Yep, mine are back too. I just looked today and they are back full force. But, I also have noticed a bunch of those parasitic wasps around and when I saw the Aphids tonight, sure enough, I watched one of those wasps making the rounds. I just need about a thousand more to come in and get busy. I haven't seen any lady bugs around yet.

I will probably spray them off tomorrow with water. I just hope they don't migrate from the roses to my peppers. I haven't really looked closely at the peppers.

Bruce

Sorry to hear that, but expected it. It was an archived post from this list, don't remember who wrote it now, but they commented that once you get aphids on your peppers it's best to just destroy the plants and start over... after 3+ months of fighting these beasts, I think that's the best advice. Interesting, I received some pepper plants in the mail this week, when I opened them I discovered that one of the plants had some aphids on it.

Better check the peppers, Bruce. I'll keep my fingers crossed that they stick to the roses.
Pam