Just as everything starts to reach blooming size each winter, the holidays hit. I get so busy with seasonal preparations and socializing that my attention to the indoor garden is reduced to just the watering it needs to survive. Then, the Holidays are over, and I suddenly notice that the aphids are back. Actually, they never have been gone. I just keep them in check. Any creature with a lifestyle like theirs is going to be very hard to eradicate completely without killing me too, so normally I choose to do timely maintenance rather than all out war. If you have never studied the life cycle of aphids you will be amazed by it. They are almost entirely a female population. Usually only the first generation in the spring hatches from eggs. Throughout the summer the females give birth to live young (all female) who are already pregnant at birth. When they have exhausted the local food source, some of these sluggish, wingless wonders develop wings and fly to another food source to continue producing more live, wingless aphids until the end of their season when males are produced to fertilize the eggs that will winter over to start the cycle again. If you think I made this up read all about it here.
Indoors, I never see the winged stages, male or female. The windowsill plants are all so close together and so succulent that the aphids don't have more than a short hike to the next meal. Obviously, though, if I miss even one when I treat the plants, they will be back. The tactic I use indoors is either insecticidal soap or horticultural oil. I have a slight preference for the oil, but that is mainly because I have plenty and it can also be used to make a dandy fungicide when used in combination with baking soda (more on that at another time). I take heavily infected plants to the laundry sink in the basement and give them a stiff shower with a fine mist hose nozzle normally used for watering seedlings. At a higher water pressure, the spray becomes efficient at knocking aphids off plants without damage. I pay particular attention to washing the undersides of the leaves, the stems and the growing tips where the new leaves and flower buds are forming. I shake off the excess water and then spray with the oil and water mixture, attending again carefully to those areas where they are most likely to be since the oil must contact them directly.
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