How to Control Aphids in your Greenhouse

There are over 900,000 known insect species on earth, but aphid species are some of the most well known to gardeners. Did you know there are many different species of this notorious pest insect? Although we generally refer to all aphids as a general pest, different species actually affect gardens differently because they have specific winter hosts.

Aphid Biology

Aphids live what’s called a holocyclic life cycle, utilizing different plant hosts in summer and winter. Females reproduce asexually during the summer months, giving birth to live females genetically identical to themselves.

aphids on leaf

Aphid populations grow so quickly because the majority of females are actually born pregnant! When fall comes, females also begin to give birth to males. At this time of year, male and females mate, producing eggs that will develop over winter on woody hosts specific to the aphid species.

When the weather begins to warm in the spring, aphids emerge from eggs, feed first on their woody winter host plant, and then move to their herbaceous summer hosts.  Often your vegetable or flower garden. 

Have you ever noticed that some aphids have wings and others don’t? In order to move to a new host, some aphids actually undergo a hormonal change based on their environment that allows them to grow wings. This happens when host plants become too crowded, the food source is poor, or when it’s time to switch from winter to summer hosts. The good news is, aphids are actually poor flyers. They can barely see, and don’t know if they’ve landed on something edible until they actually taste it!

Why are Aphids Considered Pests?

Aphids are considered garden pests because of the context in which gardeners interact with them. Of the hundreds of thousands of known insect species, many don’t affect gardeners. Some are even labeled as beneficial insects because they actually support gardening activities. Others, like aphids, are considered pests because they are destructive to our flowers and vegetables. 

aphids on the underside of leaves

Aphids are phloem-feeding insects. They use piercing and sucking mouthparts to tap into the phloem of plants, extracting all the sweet sugars, carbohydrates and other metabolic products produced by plants. Photosynthesis creates these carbohydrates in the leaves and transports them down to the root system. Although this causes little tissue damage to the plant (unless an infestation is very severe), it robs the affected plant of much-needed nutrients and energy.

Aphids can also carry plant diseases and plant viruses, which they transmit during feeding. Feeding also results in honeydew production. Sugary, sticky honeydew on plant surfaces can create an ideal environment for black sooty mold growth. Although aphids themselves can reduce plant vigor and growth, the secondary problems that can result from their presence can also be detrimental to the garden.

Greenhouses are amazing because they create a protected, indoor environment that allows you to grow food and flowers year-round. However, greenhouses also create a protected environment for insects, sheltering them from natural population controls including wind, heavy precipitation, and temperature swings. Because of this, aphids can become very annoying in greenhouse environments if not monitored and managed well.

aphids in your greenhouse

What Attracts Aphids to Your Garden?

Aphids feeding in your garden are biologically driven, but certain conditions may cause them to end up in your garden, reproduce, and cause damage. Keeping plants in your garden healthy is actually one of the best ways to prevent outbreaks. Here are a few things you can do to avoid stressed plants and over population:

  • Maintain nutrient-rich, well-structured soil.
  • Develop and follow a watering or irrigation scheme that consistently delivers adequate moisture to plants.
  • Maintain proper plant spacing, avoiding overcrowding, and thin when necessary.
  • Ensure adequate airflow (critical for aphid control in a greenhouse environment).
  • Avoid stressing plants by exposing them to temperature extremes.
  • Provide additional nutrients in the form of organic fertilizers only. Avoid too much Nitrogen fertilizer, which stimulates the tender vegetative growth that aphids are most attracted to.
  • Select plant varieties that are resistant to aphid infestations and/or the plant diseases they transmit.
  • Rotate plant varieties during different growing seasons and use succession planting techniques.
  • Maintain proper garden sanitation.
  • Ensure your garden is well weeded and that weeds are minimized in the surrounding landscape.

Assessing the Situation

Remove aphids from leaves with your hands

Once you’ve noticed aphids on your plants, you have to decide if pest management is warranted, and what method is appropriate. The decision will be based on both personal tolerance and plant health concerns. Generally speaking, gardeners hit their “aphid tolerance threshold” before plant health becomes a major concern. These insects just bother us, and we immediately want to reduce their numbers.

  • Minor infestation: Gently remove with your hand.
  • Medium infestation: Use integrated pest management techniques described below.
  • Remove heavily infested plants entirely from our Growing Dome greenhouse.

Really, one of the toughest concepts for many gardeners to come to terms with is that APHIDS ARE PART OF THE GARDEN ECOSYSTEM, and aiming to completely eradicate them is futile. Instead, it’s more productive to consider ways to manage and control aphid populations so they cause the least amount of harm and annoyance.

Aphid Control Techniques

Once you’ve determined the severity of the infestation, there are a number of integrated pest management techniques you can use to control them. These techniques include cultural, mechanical, chemical, and biological controls.

Cultural controls include many methods discussed above in “What Attracts Aphids to Your Garden”, including proper irrigation, crop rotation, nutrient management, plant variety selection, and proper plant spacing. Often, the most effective management regimes combine a few techniques that fall into each of these categories.

If you’ve decided to manage the aphid population in your garden, there are many management method choices to consider:

  • Squishing the aphids (mechanical) – works best if you have a good amount of time, are feeling vindictive, and when aphid populations aren’t extremely dense.
  • Spraying aphids off your plants with a strong stream of water (mechanical) –  can kill some aphids, but mostly just interrupts their feeding on your plants.
  • Shaking aphids off of your plants (mechanical) – interrupts aphid feeding, but doesn’t actually harm them for the most part.
  • Removal of heavily infested leaves or whole plants (mechanical, cultural) – physically remove aphids from your garden, decreasing populations and removing plants that have lost vigor and are highly attractive to aphids.
  • Planting “decoy” plants to attract aphids away from highly desired plants (cultural) – Planting species like marigolds and calendula may lure aphids away from your prized lettuces and other vegetables.
  • Introduction of beneficial insects (biological) – physically introducing natural enemies to your garden. Ladybugs are the most commonly introduced beneficial insect. Keep in mind it’s important to create a habitat for your new beneficial insects so they stick around!
  • Encouraging beneficial insects (biological, cultural) – creating an ideal habitat for aphid predators that already exists in your area so they will reproduce in your garden and help to manage pest insects. One good way to do this is to cultivate plants that attract beneficial insects including lacewings, ladybugs and spiders.
  • Organic sprays (chemical) – although “chemical” sounds a little scary, organic sprays actually fall into this category, but are a much better alternative to synthetic chemical sprays. Spray ingredients often include soaps, garlic, neem oil and pepper among others.

Growing Spaces Organic Spray Recipe

organic pest control for aphids

Interested in the recipe for the organic spray we used in this video? Here’s how Dana made it:

  1. Boil 1-gallon water in a deep sauce pot.
  2. Add 3 tablespoons red pepper flakes to the boiling water, cover, and allow to boil for 15-20 minutes.
  3. Turn off the burner and let the red pepper flakes sit in the water for 24-36 hours. (This allows the capsaicin in the red pepper to soak into the water. Capsaicin is the oil that makes chilis hot, and inflicts nervous system damage on soft-bodied insects, killing them.)
  4. Strain the red pepper flakes from the mixture using a mesh pasta strainer or cheesecloth.
  5. Put the red pepper mixture in a storage container or sprayer.
  6. Add a few drops of Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap (the fatty acids in some soaps injure soft-bodied insects).

You can apply this pepper/soap spray to the undersides of leaves affected to curb and manage populations. Be very careful to avoid your own eyes when spraying, and keep in mind that using an organic spray such as this one can also injure beneficial insects. If you’ve seen beneficial insects around, you may want to avoid using a spray and consider different cultural and mechanical management methods.

For more information, visit our latest blog post on How to get Rid of Aphids Naturally

Do you have your own organic pest control method? Still have questions about pests in the garden? Ask a question or let us know what works in your own outdoor garden or greenhouse in the comment section below!

Please contact us if you’d like to get more information on Growing Domes.  Or to receive more informative gardening and Growing Dome articles, please sign up for our monthly Newsletter “The Happy Grower”.

author avatar
Kyle
Kyle joined the Growing Spaces team in 2015, and enjoys being involved in all the exciting projects and developments happening around here!I graduated from Pagosa Springs High School in 2009 and moved to Gunnison, Colorado to pursue a degree in Environmental Studies. After graduating from Western State Colorado University, I moved back to my home town Pagosa Springs. Since moving back home in 2013, I have been working to develop a farm in Arboles. In my spare time, one may find me backpacking in the wilderness, cruising on a mountain bike, slacklining in the park, or skiing Wolf Creek. I also enjoy creating art when I am not outdoors. The mediums that I enjoy working with are yarn, canvas and paint, and clay. I have been experimenting with aquapoinics and am always excited to share knowledge on the subject with others. I joined the Growing Spaces team in 2015, and enjoy being involved in all the exciting projects and developments happening around here!

11 Comments

  • Great video and article, Dana you are right on track with your comment about tolerance. The 1st yr with our dome we freaked out with every bug but now we closely monitor and use pulling the plant if we have plenty of others or spraying with an organic soap to deal with them. This year with the warm weather this early I have had full ventilation going and that seems to help to keep the humidity under control. The last line of defense is as you said the salad strainer and wash multiple times.
    Keep the info coming

  • Aphids are definitely are biggest challenge. We use all the methods above plus applying Sucrashield + Safersoap. Surcrashield is a sugar-based compound that quickly dehydrates the buggers. It kills very quickly and it is safe so there’s no wait time before you can eat the veggies.
    One thing I would like to hear from others is how people get beneficials like green lacewings and ladybugs to stay in their domes. Ours always fly off in a few weeks.

    • Jennifer, thanks for the suggestion about sucrashield + Safersoap, maybe we’ll give that a try here at Growing Spaces.
      Attracting beneficials to your garden is another excellent way to manage aphids and other pests. However, it can be difficult to attract and keep them if you are using some kind of spray because many of these are also soft bodied insects easily injured or killed by soaps and oils.
      When considering how to attract and keep lacewings, lady beetles and other beneficials like syrphid flies in your garden, it’s most important to know about their lifecycle and provide adequate habitat for them. Lady beetles and lacewings both undergo complete metamorphosis, so creating a garden environment that encourages them to reproduce and lay eggs is critical to keeping them around. One key to achieving this is keeping in mind that these insects eat two things – soft bodied insects (like aphids) and pollen (protein). Both adult lacewings and lady beetles consume much more pollen than insects, while the larvae of both predators consume large amounts of pest insects including aphids. Really, the key is to provide both pollen (with flowers) and insect food (which is why aphids are part of a healthy garden ecosystem, as much as we all despise them)
      Try a few of these plants to encourage lady beetles and lacewings:
      Calendula
      Dill
      Fennel
      Sweet Alyssum
      Statice
      Yarrow
      Chives (let them flower)
      Marigolds
      Nasturtium

  • This blog is a good idea, especially as the advice seems founded on observation and common sense. Also would be wise to avoid the amateurish over-use of exclamation points!!! My old Wyoming 15-foot dome became infested with sow bugs and though 99% of gardening advisers say “no problem,” in large numbers they definitely stunt plants and are the ruination of young seedlings and sprouts. Diatomaceous soil did not help. Only emptying the water tank and opening the dome to the elements for a winter got rid of the pests. The sow bugs came with some rich rotted cow manure-based compost I used in the beds–not rotted enough, perhaps. And because we had laid in a flagstone floor they found great hiding places under the stones.

  • I know my method is odd but it works well if one is careful. I use a vacuum cleaner to rid my plants of aphids. I have it on a low suction setting with an upholstery brush attached and skim over the affected area. I hold the leaf tips of the plant (usually tomato plants) gently pulling them taut so they don’t get sucked in. I avoid any blossoms and manually pick the aphids off of those if there are any. Works like a charm

  • I got some Aphidius wasps from a friend in 2013 and put them in my 18 foot growing dome. They must have over wintered because last year as soon as the aphids came out, so did the Aphidius. The population of the wasps expanded along with the aphids and I was actually able to grow a pepper plant in my dome without it being destroyed by the aphids. I hope I have them again this year.

  • I have had trouble with aphids…constant battle. This year I took everything out of the dome, sprayed the whole interior and plants I wanted to keep with neem oil. Non of the plants seem to have any aphids hatching and they’re in the warmth of the house. I let the greenhouse freeze over. Now we’ll see!
    I saw a video on the Queens garden in England. She insists on organic gardening. They spray all the roses and susceptible plants with a garlic spray that they make. Do you have a recipe for that? Is the pepper spray better?

    • Pepper spray isn’t necessarily better or worse than any other organic spray recipe you could use for aphid management. I like the pepper spray because it’s easy to make and I often have red pepper flakes around my house.
      Garlic sprays work very well also and I would encourage you to give one a try. In fact, garlic is both antifungal and antibacterial, so it can be very helpful in the garden more generally. It kills aphids because of the sulfur it contains.

      Give this garlic oil spray a go:
      Chop of 4-5 garlic cloves and let sit in mineral oil for a day or a couple of days. Once the garlic has “steeped” sufficiently, strain out the cloves and add the garlic-mineral oil to a spray bottle with water. Also add 5-10 drops of dish soap to the mixture. You can spray as is (concentrated) for dilute further with water when you want to use it.

      When thinking about spraying for aphids, do keep in mind that many of these organic sprays aren’t selective, so they can injure beneficial insect populations as well.

      Good luck managing your aphids this year :)

  • I too have aphids, thank you for the spray recipe. I have been using plain miracle soap after Ugar explained that chewing tobacco tea was not good to use. I think I will add some pepper and neem and peppermint to the mix. Every time I water I follow up with spraying afterwards… this really helps.

  • With our 18 ft growing dome completed and ready for planting here in southern Colorado 30 miles west of Pueblo, we planted seeds for four different kinds of lettuce, carrots, green bunch onions, kale, spinach, arugula, beans, peppers and peas. We sowed the seeds on the 23rd of February and by the 7th of April had large volumes of fresh salad each day. During that time from Feb till May we had no aphids whatsoever. The center island was thick with growth irrigated with a drip system as was the perimeter bed. Then as the weather got hotter we took out the lettuces, kale and carrots after we harvested and planted container zucchini, determinate tomatoes and kept an eye on the previously planted peppers. We also have a trellis that supports several types of indeterminate tomatoes that we planted in February that are growing but a bit spindly and producing less than expected. We also seeded spinach again along with radishes and kale. Now we are disturbed to see the new seedling as well as the old pepper plants invested with copious quantities of aphids. I’ve been using Spinosad Soap spray to control this infestation and pulled out three rows of the spinach seedlings since they had been weakened beyond repair.
    Our initial success at producing fresh food has been tempered by the aphids that are hampering our plants. We have strategically placed marigolds throughout the dome and the lady bugs our neighbor brought over flew the koop the moment he released them. Unfortunately, he released them while the vents were open.
    How come the initial planting was aphid free but now the pests are numerous ?

    • Hans,

      Aphids will come an go. They have been a seasonal pest here at Growing Spaces because they overwinter in pine trees. The best thing you can do is keep your soil healthy and amended so your plants are strong. Healthy soil = healthy plants. If your tomatoes are spindly and not producing well, that tells me that your soil could use some nutrients. The three macro nutrients are the most important (NPK), but micro nutrients are also important. Phosphorus, Potassium, and Calcium are especially important for tomatoes when flowering and fruiting. You say it is getting hot… tomatoes will not do well if you have sustained temps over 86F. Tomatoes also need plenty of water. Compost tea is an amazing solution to get your tomatoes the nutrients they need quickly. There are many recipes online.

      In regards to plants like radish, spinach, and kale, they are all cool season crops and do not typically do well in the hot summer months. They may do well if they are under a canopy of another plant and are living in a micro-climate.

      Did you get any of your plants as starts? If you did, I would suspect that you brought some aphid hitchhikers along to your greenhouse. This is the most common way people get pest insects in their greenhouse. I always recommend starting your transplants from seed.

      Ladybugs need habitat. If they don’t have the right habitat, they will leave immediately. Also, it is recommended to release ladybugs at night. They are much more likely to stick around because they don’t fly at night.

      Here is an organic insecticide recipe that I like to use for any soft bodied insect: 1-2tsp Dr. Bronners Peppermint Soap, 4tsp Dyna Gro Pure neem oil, and 1-3tsp of kelp meal concentrate, mix well with one gallon of water in a 1 gallon hand sprayer.

      I hope this helps!

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