[Lazy-al]

Hi all, first off I'd like to say hello and well done on a great site.
Now I'm a novice allotment holder and have only had my plot since April. Most things I have planted are growing well and looking good, however my sweetcorn is stunted and some of the leaves are curling up. Today I gave it a good check over and there are a lot of green aphids on the underside of the leaves, so many in fact they were covering about 70% of the leaf. Is it too late to do anything about the infestation or should I just pull the plants? Is there any natural remedies to get rid of the infestation? I've seen garlic and chilli or soapy water on some sites. Does anyone have a good system for control? I hope you can help. Many thanks.

[Yorkie]

Welcome to the site Lazy-Al, feel free to pop back into the Welcome forum for a proper hello 

Soapy water or a good squirt with the hosepipe will temporarily dislodge them.  If you are happy to use chemicals, check out the Provado Ultimate bug killer range - I think some of them are usable on veggies.

[sunshineband]

Provada would do the job 

If you don't have too many plants, you can remove the aphids by running the leaves through your soapy hands. This squashes them (the aphids, not the leaves) a bit so they tend not to be fit enought to scramble back on 

[Lazy-al]

Thank you for the quick responses. I'm not trying to be organic however I am trying not to use chemicals if I can help it. I don't want to use anything that may affect any of my neighbours plots. I currently have about 26 plants in a block, when I found the infestation yesterday I did try and wipe off as many aphids on the leaves as i could but I don't know how far into the stem they may be. The plants do seem to be stunted and not that healthy any more. They are only about 9 inches tall. Would it be worth pulling the plants and trying again next year?

[mumofstig]

That's your choice, but a squirt of Provado on each plant certainly wouldn't affect your other crops or the neighbours' plots

[Lazy-al]

having had a look around on the net i see that Bayer make an organic bug free spray, has anyone used this? i would like to try and salvage any of the plants if i can. if nothing works then i havent really lost anything as the plants won't mature as they are. i will always have gained some experience at the least

[Vit]

You can use whatever based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrethrum smells like flowers and give no chance to that tiny creatures 

[Lazy-al]

Thanks for the advice, I will give something a try and hopefully it's not too late for my sweetcorn