Thanks.
I've ordered lacewing larvae, put the plants inside the balcony and closed the glass panes on the front. Hopefully the invasion is under control before I get complaints that a hot balcony full of flies is not a great place to enjoy the warm weather..
nio_nl
joined 2 years ago
In the past years I have ordered ladybug larvae, which kinda worked, but of course once they turn into the beetles they will soon fly away.
I have now ordered a bunch of lacewing larvae. They say that they're great aphid killers too. This time I've put most of the plants inside the balcony and closed the glass panes on the front. This helps keep the temperature nice and cosy, and it will prevent most of the adult lacewings from flying away, hopefully have them lay a few more eggs near the remaining aphids. I'll try to keep the panes closed, but at some point someone will want to enjoy the warm weather on the balcony, and a hot balcony full of flies is probably not appreciated..
Thanks for the advise. This balcony is open only to the front, so birds don't visit often (or they're very sneaky).
Though I'd like to see birds, currently I really want insects that keep the aphids away. Occasionally I see a bee-shaped creature making a few circles across the balcony but then they leave again. The internet tells me I need to add dille, rosemary, mint, marigold, and other plants to repel the aphids and attract ladybugs. Well, I did all that, and the aphids even destroyed the mint and don't fear the rosemary either, while the ladybugs hardly ever visit unless I add them myself, after which they eventually fly away never to return.
There's more photo's but I don't know how to share them.
TL;DR: windy balcony up high invaded by aphids, what to do?
Situation
I have a balcony some 10 storeys high, in the Netherlands, and like to make it into a lush miniature balcony garden, so I have a lot of plants.
Unfortunately the balcony often gets a lot of wind, and nearly all the plants are being invaded by aphids of various sorts. Many of the plants are dying or struggling, with a small exception of the broccoli, hedera helix, some gifted alium bulbs, and a recently added hop plant which grows like there's no tomorrow.
The balcony only has an open front; the sides and top are all closed. Despite that, even the plants in the back are regularly shaken by gusts of wind.
What I've tried
- given the plants plenty of water and nutrients with worm compost
- squished a bunch of the aphids (not my thing, but worth a shot)
- added local flowering plants to attract natural enemies
- added other flowers like common marigold and a ladybug flower seed mix
- led the rose plant to the front of the balcony
- added two hedera helix plants in the hopes they'd grow into a sort of frame around the front, but they're not doing much yet
- bought and spread out ladybug larvae multiple times over the past few years
- added two bee/insect hotels
- filled a pot with leaves and placed it upside-down on a large planter, hoping to attract earwigs and other aphid enemies
- added a ladybug hotel; a wooden box with horizontal slids, filled with leaves
The ladybug larvae help a little, but the problem with an open balcony is that eventually they fly away.
Effects of plants on attracting enemies and repelling aphids
I've been trying to attract natural enemies like ladybugs and hover flies by adding flowering plants, but it's not working.
This year I've had about half a dozen marigolds flowering, and a few other plants, but they don't last long because of the aphids. The rose plant and white grape plant are also suffering from white fuzzy aphid-like bugs, shown in the photo, in addition to the green aphids.
Even the mint plants and rosemary, which supposedly aphids don't like, were attacked by the little green bastards.
--
I'm running out of ideas.
I'm thinking of putting more native and local plants on the front of the balcony, but the way it's going now, I'm not sure if they would survive.
The lower half of the front is behind glass, blocking direct outside access to passing insects. Maybe it would help if I lead climbing plants along the front sides and the top? The challenge there is that it can get very windy, and this being an apartment building, I can't have plants escaping the balcony.
I'd prefer to solve this in a natural sustainable way, do I haven't used the soap option.
I can keep buying ladybug larvae, but that will get expensive with the amount of aphids every year.
Please oh wise internet, can you help me?
Wow, that looks great, thanks! I did look on xda, but I missed this one because it's in the OnePlus 3 forum and I only looked in the OnePlus 3T forum.
Good to see that there's still development going on for this device, and with decent privacy/security too, I like.
Alright, I've added the spaces.
Will do, thanks.
There's more options there, from Tor to ad-blocking yet privacy-respecting VPNs to mirrors of websites and paywall circumvention tactics.
True. It's not all black and white.
But I'm sure you understand the general idea behind the project.
I think I've written down a few like "find the license in the menu of your TV" or "find out which Open Source software your TV uses", something like that. The idea was to have the user find out that many devices use Open Source, and to give a sense of what open software is used in commercial products,
I agree with your sentiment on the "free" part. It can be confusing to spot the difference between free, libre, Open Source, and FOSS. I'm not sure how to make this easy and interesting for the user. Maybe a single item "Know the definition of FOSS/FLOSS" would lead the user into a small rabbit hole that explains the whole thing.
Once the user knows the difference, they might go look through their [device/app]'s license again to get a perspective and find any violations.
Target multi-player more. This spreads faster.
Good point.
Teach others how to spread these ideas without trying (see my posts).
I'll take a look, thanks.
bring an old device back to life with Open Source software
it's in the list
I think "try a Linux live distro" was on the original list somewhere, I'll check.
The list is not ordered right now, so it's all mixed up. The idea of repeating items like "for a week, a month, etc" is nice. It's relatively easy for the user, gives them that goal to achieve, and it's an easy way to fill more of the boxes. :)
Maybe move the apps into a work profile meanwhile.
What do you mean by that?
It should be perfectly valid MarkDown, and it displays just fine on the webpage.
I forgot one: "brush Richard Stallman's beard". That probably goes in the "advanced" area. ;-)
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Good point. I've ordered lacewing larvae now, but if it happens again in the future, I'll check if there are any environment-friendly soaps.