Most likely aphids. Are they slow=moving? And do ya have any fast-movingones nearby (their predators). I had this on my cilantro. I watered and gently washed with diluted soapy water. At the time I needed to pot up so I did and gently washed the undersides of leaves in running water and used fresh clean soil. It worked. I have a spray bottle of that soapy water to continue "washing" my plants with mist to help keep down infestation.

bon

I agree, Bon. Do they kind of "twitch" as well? That was one thing I hated about growing Spinach (way back when), was making sure I washed off all aphids. I didn't want to add that particular protein to my food, lol. Yuck!

Susan

Canokie, It is likely they are aphids. See the link below for a photo of aphids. What you choose to do about them is up to you. I generally don't do anything on most crops and I'll explain why in a second. That's also my approach with most other pest insects. Our gardens are natural ecosystems and the less we interfere in the ecosystem, the better it works. So, to garden in the most sustainable way, I don't get too excited about most plant-eating bugs. If I leave them alone, beneficial insects will take care of them for me. It is the hardest thing in the world to leave the aphids alone, but over several decades of gardening, I've learned that it works for me and my garden. I sometimes will knock the aphids off the undersides of leaves with a sharp stream of water from the hose if the lady bugs are slow to show up, but I don't like doing even that small amount of intervention because the lady bugs won't produce more lady bugs if there are not any aphids and other bugs to support the babies' nutritional needs.

Like everyone else, aphids are happy to see spring arrive and they go right to work eating and reproducing. That's usually when we notice them on our plants. In most cases, if we ignore them and leave them alone, the beneficial insects will come along and take care of them. In my garden, it usually is the ladybugs that show up anywhere from 3 to 10 days later to eat the aphids and other pests. I won't have ladybugs show up and reproduce in appreciable numbers until there is a food supply to support their reproduction, so I avoid killing off the first aphids so the ladybugs will have a reason to come to my garden. Once they are here, they stick around and do tons of pest control for me.

You never will have a bug-free garden, nor should you expect to. Remember that for every pest that attacks your plants, Mother Nature has created a pest insect or disease that will control that pest over time if allowed to do so. I have found that there are only a few plant-eating pests that warrant any intervention whatsoever on my plants. Aphids are not one of them. This is our 14th spring in this garden, and I bet I haven't sprayed for aphids more than 3 or 4 times in that 14 years. It just isn't necessary in most cases.

I practice integrated pest management, always choosing the least-invasive method of controlling pests and then working my way up to methods that are increasingly invasive if needed. That escalation rarely is needed. For the most part, if I leave the pests alone, something in the garden ecosystem takes care of them for me.

There are a handful of pests I'll attack aggressively when they first appear early in the season. Generally those are leaf-eating pests for which I've never found a great and fast early solution. One such pest is the caterpillars (imported cabbage worms and cabbage loopers) that show up on brassicas in early spring. I will hand-pick them if I have time in order to keep them from decimating/destroying young, small plants, and if I don't have time to hand-pick them, I'll spray the plants with neem once. Only once. I don't believe in repeated spraying. It doesn't fit in with my goal of having a sustainable garden ecosystem that takes care of itself. I'll do the same with Colorado potato beetles when they first appear. I'll hand-pick them and drop them into soapy water to drown. Usually I have to do that for a week to 10 days, checking for them every morning and evening, and after that, something in my ecosystem takes care of them. Usually it is a turtle that shows up every year and lives in the garden the rest of that year, but it often doesn't show up until sometime in April. Sometimes it is toads, or maybe birds, or praying mantids. My garden is full of all kinds of living creatures that will eat the plant-eating creatures, but only if I leave them alone and don't intervene too much.

When intervention is needed, I start with the least invasive methods...using knocking pests off the plants with a water hose or hand-picking them and either squishing them or drowning them in soapy water.

In our rural area, grasshoppers are a major issue. I usually order and apply a natural disease that kills hoppers once in early spring when grasshoppers are in the smallest instars. It only works well on them when they are small, so I tend to use it in April and then I move on and don't worry about the hoppers after that. If their population becomes an issue in July or August, I'll deal with it then, but it only is an issue maybe 2 years out of 5.

I may or may not do anything to combat corn ear worms and European corn borers. Most years they do only minor damage, and it is easy to cut the damaged portions of the ears away and use the rest of the ear.

I will aggressively attack the nymphs of squash bugs before they have a chance to grow into full-sized squash bugs. I don't have many predators in my garden that go after the squash bugs, and I try to protect squash plants from squash vine borers for the rather obvious reason that they will kill your plants, and fairly quickly too.

It is your choice how aggressively you choose to attempt to control insects in your garden. My choice is to garden as naturally as possible, and believe me, I did not grow up that way. When I was young, my Dad was quick to grab a broad-spectrum pesticide and spray, spray, spray. What I learned from watching him do that year after year after year was that the more he sprayed, the more pests he had. That made me realize there had to be a better way. In his later decades, he learned that too although he was slower to convert to organic gardening than I was.

When I first converted from gardening in a more conventional way, all I really did was start substituting pesticides that were organic in nature for pesticides that were synthetic in nature. As I matured as a gardener and became more confident in my knowledge and understanding of what worked best for me, I used less and less pesticides of any kind and found that the fewer pesticides I used, the fewer pests I had to worry about. Just because a pesticide is organic rather than synthetic in nature does not automatically mean it is safer. Many organic pesticides are very toxic and I won't use them under any condition, and two that are on that 'won't use' list are rotenone and pyrethrins.

After we moved here was when I realized I needed to continue to move beyond mere organic gardening to true sustainable gardening. When you are surrounded by thousands of acres of land where no one sprays much of anything, ever, for pests, you expect you might have lots of pest problems. Yet, you learn than you can peacefully co-exist with most of the millions of insects per acre than surround you. So that's what I focus on. My method is not for everyone, but it works just fine for me. My garden always produces very good yields in even the worst of years, and it produces huge yields in good years, and it does it with very little pest intervention on my part. I'd rather spend my time outdoors enjoying myself and focusing on more important tasks than worrying about every bug that flies, creeps, crawls or hops by me. I'm rewarded with a garden full of plants that produce just fine even if they don't look perfect, and by garden companions like toads, frogs, lizards, birds, snakes (the non-venomous ones are welcome), turtles and beneficial insects of all kinds including lady bugs, green lacewings, butterflies, bees, beneficial wasps in all sizes, ground beetles, etc.

I know this is a long answer, but I want for everyone to think about whether or not it is necessary to try to control every living creature in their garden. Every creature in the garden eats something or someone and every creature in the garden is eaten by something or someone. So, if I leave the system alone for the most part, it works the way it was meant to work. Also, in our hot climate it is very easy to damage your own plants using homemade soap sprays or by using oil sprays in high temperatures. I've seen more people damage their gardens by spraying too much than spraying too little. Your mileage may vary.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Image of Aphids Being Attacked by Lady Bug Larvae

Thanks, everybody! Yep, they are aphids - I looked at the pictures and that is exactly what they are. Thank you everyone for your advice.

Dawn, thank you so much for your helpful reply. I have clipped so many of your posts because they are so detailed and informative. I think there is a lot of wisdom in your post, and I am going to try a hands off approach as much as possible, keeping an eye out for the really destructive ones. First I need to learn a lot more about which ones are the bad guys, because that orange and black bug in the picture you liked I've seen before, and I would have thought he was a bad guy too. I did know that ladybugs are helpful, and last year I had a gazillion of them, so hopefully they will show up soon and take care of the aphids.

By the way, just before logging on this morning, I was looking out the back door at my garden (thinking about how much I had achieved yesterday, and yet how much more needs to be done!) and I saw a bird fly down and start picking up bugs from some soil I had transferred from the old beds yesterday. I noticed the soil I am moving, which I have had for two years now, is full of all kinds of life, including LOTS of earthworms. Anyway, then a second bird flew down next to my lettuce and spinach, and started vigorously picking something off the leaves! I thought that was so cool... and it underscores the point you were trying to make. When I first moved here and started gardening in 2010, there was no life here at all except for the rabbits. I guess all the upheaval from putting in a community of homes where open fields used to be had scared everything else away. They also hauled off the topsoil, so I had to buy some to fill my raised beds on top of the red clay. There were no birds singing, and nothing in the soil. It is very rewarding to see life returning, as we have lots of birds this spring, and I found a toad on my lawn last night while weeding the front yard by hand (yes, the neighbors all think I'm crazy but I don't care - no way am I spraying that lethal stuff all over my property!) Maybe in time my yard can become a little oasis for all kinds of critters, as I think I am the only one who doesn't spray their yard around here.

Anyway, thank you all for your help. I have learned so much from you all here, and I'm sure I will learn a lot more yet. I'm really hoping that this is the year I get a substantial return from my gardening efforts :)

Shelley

Dawn is terribly wise about this subject. I garden to raise butterflies, moths, provide food for hummingbirds, other birds (my Cardinals LOVE it when the Blueberries ripen and I share freely with them), allowing the Coneflowers to go to seed and many other plants in the garden, too. Last year, my Sunflowers attracted tiny insects that the hummingbirds dined on in addition to the nectar flowers and feeders I grow for them.

It was very hard at first when I first switched to organic gardening, but my first thought was to I didn't want kill the lovely butterflies that came to nectar, and as I became fascinated with their life cycle and growing their larval host plants for them. It is a great thing to pass on to children - a love of nature and care for the land and critters that live on it. Sometimes I had to literally white knuckle it to prevent picking myself from picking up the BT or some other more deadly chemical.

Since then I became a "steward" of the land and all that it gives to us. I don't have the best looking garden around at all, but I have the best looking butterflies that folks stop to observe.

Milkweed does attract the Oleander aphid, if it gets really bad and the ladybugs aren't doing their job, I will wash them off (they love to climb back on, though), but it is mainly to wash off that sticky slimy residue they leave.

Everything in nature has a purpose, as Dawn said - even the bad bugs. I have learned that we co-exist for the mutual benefit of all.

Susan

The lady bug larva looks a little like an alligator at one stage, but you can already see it's black and red coloring, so you know to leave it alone.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lady Bugs

Shelley,

I'm glad the info was helpful

Gardening Wisdom is generally taught at the School of Hard Knocks, so I try to share what little I've learned and retained so that maybe other people will be able to learn it more quickly than I did. I've been gardening my whole life and yet it seems like I still have so very much to learn.

One of those lessons I learned since moving here was that if every farmer and rancher around you overreacts to a huge grasshopper infestation and sprays, sprays, sprays beyond all reason, it is the birds that will pay the price. We had the worst grasshopper year ever. I think it was in 2003. I probably was the only person in my area not spraying large amounts of pesticides. The result? (a) everyone still had grasshoppers but the old farmer/rancher crowd was baffled that I had significantly less than they did and (b) the bluebird population in particular virtually disappeared. While once common in this area, abruptly they were gone. Gone, gone, gone, and not to be seen again for at least 3 years. Slowly their population has rebounded, but if ever there was an argument against widespread spraying of pesticides, there it is, as far as I am concerned.

Having a yard and garden full of birds and other wildlife (well, most other wildlife) is such a gift, and I won't do anything to disrupt the ecosystem on this land. If that means I will see more spider mites on plants or grasshoppers eating my plants, oh well....I will just put up with it. One hot summer when we had been fighting wildfires, grass fires and hay barn fires like crazy, we had a thunderstorm. Oh, rain, glorious rain! It was beautiful We were thrilled. How did we celebrate such a rainy afternoon? After the thunderstorm had passed, we went out and sat on the patio and watched the frogs in the lily pond leave the pond and hop all over the wet grass. Apparently they enjoyed the rain as much as we did. That's not the funny part. The funny part was that later on we talked to our next door neighbors. There is a large woodland between us so we can't see their house and they can't see ours. Guess what they did after they rain passed? They sat outside and watched the frogs. We found it hysterically funny that all we simple minded country people wanted to do was watch the frogs. It is such a simple pleasure, but one that was rare in that hot, dry summer. So, I think maybe the wildlife watchers of the world are on to something. Watching wildlife roam the same land you occupy is fascinating. To me, it is a sign of a healthy ecosystem when you see plentiful wildlife. Birds visiting the lawn and garden? What better way of finding out that you are "on track" in your efforts to develop your own little habitat right there in your neighborhood? Lots of people just don't get it, but I can tell you I'd rather watch the wildlife outside than get in the car and go to a movie theater and watch a movie. I'm weird that way. :)

Earthworms in soil are another key indicator. If you start out with poor soil, you won't see many earthworms. But, if you work at adding organic matter to your soil, every year you'll see more and more earthworms. In our soil, earthworms are absolutely everywhere. That tells me something and it is something good. Once you can attract ever-increasing earthworms to your soil, you have succeeded in taking the dirt you started out with and you have built it into soil. How wonderful is that? It wasn't all you because you had the earthworms and other soil builders there working with you, but it definitely is a partnership because large numbers of earthworms don't show up unless you have organic matter in the soil for them to digest and process. So, you and the earthworms can look at the soil every year as it gets better and better and you can say "look what we've done".

Susan, If you want to make the birds happy, leave your lettuce and other greens to go to seeds, and the little seed-eating birds like finches will flock to them. It has been really hard for me to learn to leave plants in the ground at the end of their life cycle, but even at that stage, those plants are useful to someone or something else, if not to me.

I had the same experience as you when I gave up using Bt for caterpillars. I really had to resist the urge to use it. Even long after I stopped using it, I'd buy a bottle of it every spring "just in case" I needed it. Finally, after 3 or 4 years of that, I just stopped buying it, and it was really hard to let go of that security blanket of having a container of Bt on the shelf in the garage, but I finally did it! lol Then, once I wasn't using Bt for cats, I didn't want to use it for potato bugs, so I started hand-picking them and quit buying the Bt for Colorado potato beetles. Now, I do still use the mosquito dunks with Bt 'israelensis' in my pond and maybe I always will. Since it hurts very little other than mosquitoes and fungus gnats and their ilk, I can use it guilt free.

I always liked butterflies and moths when I was a kid, and that love for them only grew after we moved here and I was able to observe them in their more-or-less natural setting. One thing that surprised me? Dragonflies. Because we have several ponds, we have tons of dragonflies and damselflies, and I adore them. They are great insect predators, which is something I'd never even thought about before I got to know them here. Now, even though they prefer the ponds, they'll come to the garden sit on the fence, and hunt for insects. I just love it. I never knew that they came in so many colors and sizes. Once you love nature and it loves you back, the discoveries like that are endlessly fascinating.

If nothing "neat" ever happens to me here on this piece of land again, I'll always have the memories of seeing luna moths two years in a row. Prior to that, I had only a faint memory of them being on the screen door of our front porch when I was a kid. I bet 30 years passed again before I found them in our yard here. You can't buy a special moment like that. You have to earn it by leaving Mother Nature alone as much as possible and letting her do her thing.

Carol, The first time I realized what lady bug larvae looked like, I was so shocked. I was like "what??" Luckily, I don't kill bugs indiscriminately, so I'd never done anything to harm them, and I had assumed they were beneficial because I never saw them eating plants. It always fascinates me how shocked people are when they realize those little alligator-like bugs will grow up to become lady bugs, but I was just as shocked when I found it out.

Dawn