Along with my allotment, I am also growing a number of salad greens such as rocket and spinach and kale on two windowsills in my living room. One of the windowsills has pots with spinach and kale, and for some or other reason, the plants on this windowsill are over run by aphids! The other windowsill is fine, but this one – over run. Seriously – stick your hand into one of the pots and shake the plant around a little and your hand comes out covered in the little green bugs. It’s rather gross!
I tried to go organic, and spent some time every day manually going through every leaf on every plant pulling them off, but actually, life is too short!
So yesterday I decided I needed to go big or give up. It was time to get rid of aphids!
I mixed three drops of Thieves oil with three drops of Peppermint oil and a small squirt of dish washing soap into a spray bottle with two cups of water and swirled it around, then sprayed it liberally onto all the leaves – top and bottom, to get the eggs too – and in the crevices of the stems. I’ll have to make sure to wash everything properly before eating to get the dishwashing soap off, but it does work, for whatever reason!
By morning there wasn’t any movement on the plants – they’re all dead. Getting the plants cleared is a bit of a manoeuvring, but they just blow off, really. New eggs began to hatch, so I’ve had to spray again, but same story – they’re just dropping off.
If you don’t want to use dish soap, you can go without it, using just the essential oils, but you may need to do two or three sprays.
Hopefully now I’ve been able to get rid of aphids the plants will have a better chance to grow and flourish and I’ll get to eat some of the fruits of my labour!