Aphid Control - by all means

[Dewayne mater]

I've been searching the archives for posts on how to control aphids. I've found several posts and ideas, suchs a green lace wings/lady bugs, soap sprays, chemical sparys and water blasts/squishing, even banana peels.

This is a post that attempts to get as many folks as possible to chip in on the topic of aphid control, so that there is a somewhat comprehensive post on the topic, instead of a few different piece meal posts. Hopefully, you'll agree to contribute and in the future, folks will search find this post and come away knowing how to win this battle.

Please post what you've used, how you use it and if it invovles purchases, where you got the products and any other helpful hints for eradicating aphids.

In my case, I'm using earthtainers for the first time and have a very early infestation of little green aphids beggining to cause leaf damage. So far, garden oil sprays have been laughed at by these aphids. So, what is next?

As for predatory bugs (Green L.W.s, ladybugs) how do you get them to stick around in an open garden?

Compost Teas, what do you add to them that gets aphids/bugs?

Chemical sprays, as echo friendly as possible please?

Water blasting?

What else is there?

I've also seen folks say you usually get bugs/disease on stressed plants. These plants are thriving and look fantastic (other than aphids) with excellent growth, flowering, small tomatoes formed, etc. So, I'm thinking these bugs see these awesome looking plants and think, what a smorgasboard for me and my gillions of offspring!

If this idea of a big post works, it might work for other topics too. (goodness I hope folks respond, otherwise I just showed my hiney!)