Don’t think it’s worth spraying down with neem oil or something at this point.
It’s only its second year, the buds are just forming, and I wasn’t expecting to do much with them. If I’m gonna try brewing a batch of beer the first will be with some store bought dried hops to get the feel of things first.
On the plus side, I did get a decent haul of bush beans, a couple dozen are over ripe though.
I believe a lot of garden shops carry lady bugs. At least the ones in my area did a few weeks ago. They may be seasonal.
You can order ladybugs to eat the aphids. No need to use any kind of spray.
It takes a lot of patience but these can be knocked off with spraying each leaf with water and gently rubbing the bugs off. Try doing it three days in a row and you’ll probably see a big difference.
Mantises are good for pest control but they tend to go after larger bugs than spider mites and aphids.
I swear I've seen something about use of predatory mites to control spider mites.
1 part Sunlight Soap to 50 parts water in a garden pump spray bottle will fix that, just spray it every evening for a few weeks to make sure you killed them all.
Next season look into Korean Natural Farming techniques.
You're already into fermentation so it's right up your alley. But since a lot of it is around feeding local beneficial microbes, it's maybe a little late to brew something up for immediate use, but you might have something in a few days.
I have had some good luck with heavily diluted mint dr bronner’s soap. I had a few plants heavily infested with aphids and a good spray down got rid of them and the mint kept the aphids away the rest of the season. I did this only on the more shaded plants that didn’t build a strong ladybug population.
Lost Coast Plant Therapy FTW
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