YES, ALWAYS BEST TO SPRAY AT DUSK OR NIGHTFALL AS THAT IS WHEN THE BUGGERS BECOME EVEN MORE ACTIVE!
Mmmmm, fresh garden leaves
Tplant, have you also noticed that they are very active after watering? It seems that they are attracted to the water. At least it seems that way to me, aphids I mean.
Wow, the evening thing is good to know. Although I work during the week so that is when I usually can do this type of thing, Saturdays and Sundays are garden days as well so I would possible be doing this type of work at the wrong times. Thanks.
They are there at anytime but they must be destroyed wether it be with pesticides or organically as they are the harbingers of real problems to come. I use the Park's Sticky Traps. They are a bright yellow and when I see them on the stickies I spray my plants as I do not like to use excess pesticide. You can see the yellow stikies in this picture of two years ago.
Another reason not to spray in the daytime (edited here) is that it can burn the leaves of your plants on hot days, it's oil and it intensifies the sun when it's wet. It'll have time to dry off at night and during the cool morning hours, before the sun is so strong.
I bought a sprayer at Home Depot or Lowe's. They're about 18.00 plus tax here, great thing to have so you can get under the leaves where they hide, the sprayer puts out spray at 360 degrees so you can get under there.
This message was edited Apr 19, 2009 6:42 PM
Tplant: what do you use for the times when you must spray?
Well mostly Ortho products for insect control. Just make sure what you use is for vegetables or edible foods and NOT SYSTEMIC....For horned caterpillars or army worms I use the BT dust and use a hand mister which covers all. They also have the powder in green so you don't have a snow covered plant but even if you use the white powder it works very well.
thanks, I'll keep this info