WTF !? BUGS !!

So you started your indoor garden and suddenly BUGS !

Oh crap! What the EFF is this?! Are you kidding me? I raised these leaf babies from seeds, nurtured them outside all spring and summer and they’re going to bring bugs in my house? So THIS is the way they thank me.

All right look, calm down, it’s probably your fault they have bugs anyway

What do you mean, my fault?!, I didn’t vote for these bugs. I was careful, I kept my leaf babies clean and checked them before I brought them in the house.  I don’t even know what these things are!! What am I supposed to do now?

Seriously, did you keep them in a porch or greenhouse before bringing them inside? Lots of pests lay eggs in the dirt waiting for spring… and your house is a great environment for life… You live there right?

Before you go throwing your leaf babies on a bonfire, let’s see what we can do

Alright, they look like little white specs and some of them are black and nothing looks like it’s moving. So if I ask google, it looks like they’re probably aphids or whiteflies or mealybugs. But OH NO there’s like a thousand different ways to take care of them. WTF do I do with these bugs before they get my other leaf babies… OR MY HOUSE!!

Relax you can handle this, they’re just a few bugs

Here’s what you’re gonna do:

• First thing you’re gonna do is figure out what they actually are so you can get the right treatment down.  While the treatments for most small pests are similar, you don’t want to fight a losing battle.
• Actually the first thing you need to do before that is to check to see how sick the plant is. If ti’s already too far gone, quit while you’re ahead and have the funeral now.
• Next you’re gonna want to quarantine those sick leaf babies so that their malady doesn’t eff up your other plants
• Cure cure cure
  • There’s basically three steps to this fix
    1. hose the plant down and knock off all the skanky bugs
    2. soak all the upper parts (and sometimes the soil) with insecticidal soap
    3. repeat until gone

you may need to do this a couple times.  Alternately, you can get some bigger bugs

What’s nastier, bugs eating the leaf babies in your dining room or bigger bugs eating the bugs that are eating the leaf babies in your dining room

your choice but honestly, its going down in your house.  Not all pesticides are bad and insecticidal soap is pretty harmless to humans so you can deal with your nasty little Ne’er–do–well leaf chewers without worry.

Okay hot shot what is it that you do to get rid of bugs

Well, we’re still learning, and while we try to decontaminate our leaf babies from pests , to be honest, right now, we’ve got a couple plants in your shape. But instead of complaining about it like a cry baby, we’re acting on it. so here’s what we’r actually doing. We’ve got a sick pepper plant (that’s the one in the picture) and a dwarf rose (sadly it’s not likely to make it). Yesterday we took the pepper outside and hosed it down like the first day of lockup with de-lousing. First a good watering, and then a soak down with insecticidal soap.

There’s still a few bugs and today the weather is rough, so we’re taking the leaf babies to the slop sink in the basement for more treatment. The lighting is not ideal down there so we’re going to check them first thing in the morning and just before bed to make sure they’re not failing under the stress of our buggy waterboarding session… We’ll let you know how it goes.