there are a TON of aphids that hatched, waiting to be eaten by ladybugs, squished, drowned... whatever manner works the best!!! was doing well for awhile, but always suspected this was going to be a buggy year, lack of cold winter combined with wet spring... mmmm buggy season!!! my poor little greenhouse plants got swarmed, i think i've gotten rid of most of them but they are now sitting in my basil... grrrrr...
i found a website ( Ramona's Basil Garden Love your Basil ) a few months ago and received an email with a recipe for 'possible removal' of aphids using a lemon juice cocktail ( 1 lemon to 3 cups water )
Ramona has a video clip of how to make the spray... am going to make some today and give my basil a good go with it... wish me luck!!!
unfortunately the aphids have attacked one of my apple trees too... with great gusto they've mulitplied and are causing the poor little tree great stress... yesterday i was inspecting the leaves and was horrified to find....... apple tent caterpillars.... babies but hundreds of them... out came the clippers and off with the branches that were hosting the hungry little critters... as much as i hated to interfer with nature.. they are now in a very large bucket of water... hopefully all have all gone to buggy heaven....
i have my fingers crossed and will be watching closely to see if any more of the dreaded critters hatch... 'they' have predicted a tent caterpiller year because of last winter's mildness.. guess we'll see... this will be the first year that this little tree has had more than 3 apples on it.. i may end up removing the apples so the tree can heal itself... i only have 2 apple trees, both Gravenstein , in my opinion, one of the best varieties of apples..when i think of Gravenstein i think of Grandma's big old apple tree that was in the front yard, down by the river... ahhhh fond memories...
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