I don't think they look so much alike that you cannot tell them apart.

Before you can decide what to do about them, you need to figure out what they are.

Go to the bug guide linked below and enter each one in the search box and look at photos of them and decide what you have.

If your pests don't look like any of the photos you see on this website, then you may have something else like spider mite eggs, which often are mistaken for small bugs. Also look at the undersides of the leaves and see if you see any webbing.

After you figure out what you have, we can figure out what you can do to get rid of it.

Watch for lady bugs and lady bug larvae because they often show up a few days after pest insects appear, and they will eat the pests and the pest eggs.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: bugguide. net

That's what happened on my trap zuchinni, white stuff...almost looked like lice, yuk! and then the lady bug calvary did show up, and began working the plant. Then, the squash bugs came back and starting doing a number. I just thought well, what the heck, let em have it...Strangely this afternoon I couldn't see any squash bugs, and I think either the turtle or the grass snake got them, not sure, but whatever did, the zuke hasn't given up and is producing blooms and starting to set on squash again.

Barbara

Thanks for the bugguide link. I found pictures that look like what I have on pepper plants & patchouli. I'm still confused because photos of wooly aphids & citrus mealy bugs seem to match. Oklahoma citrus--I don't think so!! I'm going with the aphid diagnosis, because they washed off with a strong water spray. I have just never seen the cottony stems and undersides of leaves before today. Nor have I ever seen aphids other than the green ones on roses, & this year, yellow ones on cosmos. This has been a big pest year for me. Spider mites on brug & cukes, many colored aphids, Japanese beetles on roses & passionflower, deer ate the hydrangeas, racoons in everything, ground squirrels in potted plants, squirrels on bird feeders and running across the yard with tomatoes in their mouth, who knows what has made holes in the only patch of grass we finally got to grow, unknown animal dug up the strawberries & watermelon; webworms in the trees, mosquitos just waiting for me to step outside, millipedes in the house, tiny black ants everywhere. Haven't seen snakes--knock on wood--but I know they are out there, too! Does it sound like I'm complaining? You betcha! But if I am blessed with another year to garden, I will do it all over again. Couldn't be this bad two consecutive years. (Could it?)

I have found many bugs resemble one another and it drives me nuts too. Often, though, the lady bugs and green lacewings and other predators take care of the 'problem' bugs before I even figure out which pest we're dealing with.

It does seem like many people are reporting heavy insect problems here this year. Aphids do come in all colors, but I usually only see them earlier in spring and, if I am patient, the lady bugs and their gray and orange alligator-shaped larvae arrive a few days after the aphids and gobble them up.

We have had a lot of deer all summer, but they can't get to our garden although they nibble anything that grows through the fence. Lots of raccoons too, and rabbits and foxes and one cougar, to whom we have lost about 20 chickens and guineas. Our remaining chickens no longer free-range, and we haven't lost a single one since we stopped letting them out to roam. I've had squirrels in the yard, but not in the garden. No many Japanese Beetles here at all and no webworms either. I hate to say "none of this or that here yet" because that causes the mentioned pest to show up just to prove me wrong.

I think it could be just as bad or worse next year because it seems like we have bad pest years in rainier years, and NOAA is predicting a return of the El Nino Southern Oscillation in December, which means at the very least a rainy winter and spring which likely means more bugs. However, if we have really, really heavy rains at the right time, the water could kill some bugs that overwinter in soil or mulch, so in that case, it would be a good thing.

I have decided that they are mealy bugs. Now they have attacked the sweet basil, but so have the green grasshoppers. Not a ladybug on the property! Since I am dealing with insects on food plants, peppers & basil, is there anything I can do besides washing them off with the hose? Do they just live in the soil, waiting until I'm not watching, & crawl back up onto the plants? Is the soil now infested? Will I need to relocate my herb garden?

I never have seen mealy bugs on anything except indoor plants or greenhouse plants. I'm not saying you don't have mealy bugs, just that they are more of an indoor pest that an outdoor one and they are hard to combat outdoors.

Different pests have different kinds of life cycles. Mealy bugs only live 6 or 8 weeks, I think, but have numerous life cycles per year.

Because mealy bugs are related to scale, you can treat for them the same way that you treat plants for scale....by spraying the plants during the DORMANT season with dormant oil. I wouldn't spray even a superfine summer-weight oil in the kind of heat we're having now because it could damage or even kill the plants.

You might try spraying the mealybugs themselves with neem oil. You might try spraying with insecticidal soap, especially during this week's cool spell.

When you have a small infestation of mealybugs on a houseplant, you often can take care of them by wiping or dabbing the bugs with a swab or cottonball dipped in rubbing alcohol. Jay, who posts here as Elkwc, has been experimenting with spraying some of his plants with rubbing alcohol. If you want to talk with him about how he's doing it in terms of strength of the alcohol and frequency of the spraying, just start a new thread and put Jay's name in the title so he'll be sure to read it.

There probably are chemical insecticides that are used for mealybugs, but I don't use chemical insecticides so am not current on them.

Certain insects live a part of their life cycle in the soil, but you can't get away from them by moving your herb garden, because they'll just move to the new locations.

For grasshoppers, the best solution is Nolo Bait or Semaspore, but they are most effective only when applied at the right temperatures in the spring (April-May) and when grasshoppers are in the younger instars.

The best solution for all pest problems is to build up a healthy population of carnivore insects (aka beneficial insects) to eat the herbivore insects, and to encourage the presence of reptiles, apmhibians and birds because they help control pests too. One of my biggest garden helpers is the wild birds. I feed them a little bird seed and keep a birdbath full of clean water for them, and they reward me by sticking around and eating grasshoppers and other pests.

Healthy soil will contain microorganisms that help control pests. Healthy soil needs regular additions of organic matter like compost.

Dawn