Black Aphids on Garlic

In the last couple of days I've noticed some black dots on my garlic plant leaves and stems.
At first I thought it was dirt but on closer inspection it was moving so I knew I had a problem.

A quick google and it came up as black aphids.
The question now is how do I get rid of them before they suck the goodness out of my already sad looking crop?

A few websites recommended Eco-Oil. I've never used this product before or even seen it in the gardening section. But in saying that I have never looked for it either!

I dont want to use harmful chemicals so if anyone has any organic eco friendly ideas I would be more than happy to hear them.
I dont want to leave this too long as it drives me crazy knowing they are having a great time at the expense of my garlic.

Help?

Just use PestOil it's just petroleum oil (like liquid Vaseline) I usually buy the concentrate and mix my own. It's pretty harmless as far as I know.

For an organic mix, you can also experiment with a little olive or canola oil (about 20 mils) mixed with a few drops of washing up liquid in a litre of water sprayed onto the plants. I haven't tried this to be honest but it would do the same job and be cheaper I'd expect.

The oil spray simply works by smothering the insects so they can't breathe through their skin.

Cool, thanks Mark.
Need to check this out real soon.

any progress here?

I found some on my garlic plant on the weekend, I removed them manually, I went to wipe them off and they smeared all over the place, ohwell that fixed em.

Yeah, when I was at Bunnings the other day I checked out their range of 'killers'.
I ended up with Eco-Oil as it looked the least harmful to my health and it was large enough that I will have it for years.
Its also gonna be useful on my citrus trees.

I mixed it up and sprayed it onto all the leaves (top and bottom) and checked the next morning and they were all still there. What?
On closer inspection they were all dead and just fell off when I rinsed them off. Done.

The bottle says to do it again in 5 days so I guess that might be to catch any stragglers or eggs maybe?

In the end my garlic can go back to being the sad looking examples they are, and now without the added pain of sap-suckers.

Good stuff! They say aphids only attack weak plants but that's not true I reckon. I've had several healthy plants attacked by aphids and dealing with them quickly either by a spray (organic) or by hand like Stevo is the way to go. Often the plants come back strong and the aphids don't return.

Here's a quick article I posted on the blog written by Werner on aphids http://www.selfsufficientme.com/tips/view/1277/rose_aphid___bad_bug_to_have_in_garden_pest___4

My black little friends (aphids) seem to be a persistent little bunch.
Since I sprayed last week I've been keeping an eye on my garlic plants and can see some little friends that didn't get the hint.
There is probably about a 1/4 of the population left so I could just rub them off with my fingers but where is the fun in that I ask? I went to the trouble and expense to buy some spray so I might as well use it.
So this arvo I brought out the big guns again and gave my plants another burst with the Eco-oil. They don't stand a chance this time. (been wanting to use that ninja assassin since Mark added it)

I was at the local dodgey produce shed on Wednesday holiday, i was browsing the shelves and saw the EcoOil, i remembered those weird people on the internet said it was good, so i bought some, i was going to try it out this weekend

stevo said:

I was at the local dodgey produce shed on Wednesday holiday, i was browsing the shelves and saw the EcoOil, i remembered those weird people on the internet said it was good, so i bought some, i was going to try it out this weekend

Click to expand...

Ah the power of peer group pressure at work. Nice.
Dont blame me if it doesn't work...I'm still in the testing phase!

Nice use of the assassin smilie!

Go easy on that eco spray she's exy... but it's knock out of a product

My garlic, leeks, chives and also onions often get badly attacked by these black aphids. So last week I concocted a spray, which finally seems to work. The spray also works well on the grey aphids which attacked my brasicca plants and the white scale insects which attacked one of my curry leaf trees.

My concoction: I added some whole dried neem tree seeds (which I bought last year), some crushed garlic, a few mint leaves, peri-peri powder, a few drops of cooking oil and a dash of dishwashing liquid in a jar, to which I then added water. I placed the jar on a sunny windowsill for a few days and then sprayed the foul smelling liquid on the plants. No more aphids nor white scale.