Yes neem is safe when used as directed and works great on aphids. Spray in the evening just before sun set.

There are also a million recipes on this board for homemade insecticidal soap.

Dan

Great! The neem I have is 100% pure neem leaf oil, not a product labeled for garden use. What concentration is it OK to use it in?

I use it as in flea control dog shampoo bars but have never used it in the garden.

Will DE dry my plants out?

Seems like maybe a little dish soap with a couple of drops of neem in it may work. I also have garlic spray in my kitchen that I use for cooking. Maybe I can throw some of that in.

That's the wrong stuff. It must be made from the seeds. People with gum and teeth problems gargle with the stuff you have and I'll bet the fleas and aphids can too.
Try a tsp of dawn or joy regular(not ant-bacterial) dish soap to a 24oz spray bottle of water.

I may have an old bottle of need seed oil too actually. I'll do the dish soap as you suggested and add a few drops of the neem.

I friggin hate aphids....the leaves are already suffering from their presence.

Anyone ever try d-limone or lemon skin based insecticides? I have a ****load of lemons and limes that I could use. I know there is a flea remedy that uses lemon skins and rosemary and it does work on fleas.

Well..I think I have more than enough aphids to experiment on.

I just blast them with water. Seems to work very well.

Your mention of lemons reminded me that the joy I use is lemon scented. Works great on spidermites as well.

I had about 5 min to spend in the garden yesterday so did the quickest thing I could think of. I smashed as many of them as I could and dusted the affected areas with DE. They were only on certain cabbages which I guess they preferred. When I have more time, I will prepare the soap and spray if the DE has not worked.

The DE is not working all that well. There are less of them but it seems even if one or two are left alive, they multipy fast! Switching to soap/neem tonight. They love brussell sprouts but at least the brussell sprouts are keeping them off my cabbages and lettuce.

Of course DE is not working that well. That is not what DE is used for, as the label clearly states.

Dan

Um....Dan...DE is supposed to peirce the bodies of insects and they dehydrate and die. It is also used as a wormer to do the same for worms and it does work on fleas, ants, even spiders among other things.

I have food grade DE and it does not have a label. Even so, many things are used sucessfully off label.

I'm guessing the label on your dish soap doesn't state it kills aphds either.

Yes, thank you. I use DE on occasion and am familiar with how it works. There are more efficient ways to kill aphids, such as the suggestions in this thread, and DE is much more efficient on the target insects it is used for.

Dan

Ania, I don't know where you are in CA (or am I reading the wrong thing from your handle?), but aphids are the bane of my existence here in Northern CA.

For me, neem only works to an extent. Washing the aphids off my veggies is another thing that works only so well. I've found I've got to do that daily, otherwise, they're just back in full force.

DO NOT think you can plant "bait plants" that the aphids will go to and leave the rest of your garden alone. In my experience, those bait plants only became nurseries. Plants I've had to take off my list to grow--period--are brussel sprouts, chard and leafy lettuce. I simply lose the battle entirely and just don't grow them anymore.

I quite literally succession plant my zucchini, starting two plants in May and another two plants in July. The reason I do that is because by August, I have lost the aphid battle on my May crop and have to simply pull it out. But having a later batch planted in a different area of the garden will give me zucchini through the summer.

So, I mostly just wanted to let you know that you aren't doing anything wrong. They are horrible horrible pests, and if you grow things they like, you'll pretty much have to be out there battling against them all summer long. Spray neem the minute you put your susceptible plants in the ground, and respray weekly. Once the aphids show up, go out and spray them off with water every few days then follow up with the dish soap suggestion or neem after you've washed them off your plants. Don't plant things they love if you don't need to. I had some ornamental sweet peas that I grew near my garden, and it just became an aphid incubator. Won't do that again.

At the end of last summer, I bought some concentrate reotene something-or-other that is apparently no longer sold in the US. It was on Johnny's site as an aphid killer, so I bought it, but I haven't tried it yet. Part of the problem finding good stuff is some of it can't be purchased in CA. The cool-looking insecticidal soaps on the seed websites can't be shipped here. So you're just stuck having to do the high-maintenance thing.

(And if you aren't having similar problems with microscopic tiny baby hungry brassica-loving slugs, thank the stars! They are my OTHER archnemesis!)

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog

I'm in Southern CA. In the northern part of Los Angeles county.

They attacked my squash a couple of years in a row as well. I plan to also succesion plant it this year. I had powdery mildew problems with them too.

I'm tempted to just pull the brussell sprouts out. The aphids already damaged the plants and I think it will get hot too soon for the plant to make sprouts before bolting.

I've been smashing them too but those inner leaves are like little aphid nurseries and it's hard to get them out of there.

They are probably my biggest pest. The hornworms and smails/slugs are much easier to kill.

I am a chemist and have had aphid infestations and hence have decided to on my own time study aphids and how to combat them. Upon doing so stumbled across an interesting finding. If you smash yes I said smash them on the leaves of your plant it will actually promote growth (lots and lots of growth). As most people already know an aphid sucks the sugar out of a plant through the phloem and xylem tubes and secrets a toxin while it processes the sugar and chlorophyll that ultimately kills a plant. I found that the plant will actually adapt to the toxin if the precursor is present. Simply said smashing the aphid on the leave releases all the precursor compounds on the leaves and restores most of the chlorophyll and sugar to the plant. Most plants are actually very efficient and transferring chlorophyll amongst other nutrients all around the plant. A side note it has been largely assumed that aphid only sucked the sugar out of a plant but recently it has been discovered that they in fact take much more. If the plants are small you can easily bring out the finger of death and smile as you watch your plants flourish. The increased yields I got far outweighed the time invested.