Really bad blackfly attack

[GIULIA]

In the last 52 hours or so we've had a terrible outbreak of blackfly.. my broadbeans have gone from clean to completely smothered top to toe in the blink of an eye. I have sprayed Derris twice now (bit useless in this wind) to no avail.. anyone of a quick fix out of this one, I've never seen them so bad before it's a Hitchcockian plague.

[Jenny Green]

You could try hosing them off. This works quite well if you get a really strong spray right up close to the aphids.

[Granny]

That works really well for an instant result but I've found that quite a lot of them happily return once they've dried off. So for the hardy survivors I use soft soap mixed with water - about a tablespoonful of soap to a standard handspray bottle - probably a litre. I read (on this forum, I think) that the soap hardens when it dries and suffocates them. It does need repeating from time to time but not as often as just using a water jet. It's amazing how broad beans can be clean one day and completely black the next!
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Granny

[Primrose]

In the past when I've had a bad infestation of black fly on my runner beans I've hosed them off first as much as possible, then as soon as the leaves have dried I've sprayed with a strong mix of Fairy Liquid and water. It helps to keep them at bay if you do it really regularly and in the case of climbing beans I've often snipped off the worst offending leaves. This isn't so easy with broad beans though but this will probably be better than nothing.

[sue-the-recycler]

My beans are fine but the main victims are the gooseberries! absolutly crippled all the growing tips - have hosed and sprayed derris but looks like its a case of snipping off the tips and binning them

[WigBag]

Aphids are making a wide attack this year, I have also had to nip my gooseberries this year as most of the tips had little colonies. I managed to pinch out my broad beans ( Aquadulce) in time and so far my spring grown broad beans (Green Windsor) are nearing a suitable height and free. My spring and summer cabbages are inspected regularly and combatted by squish and water spray, I will be using soap flakes in the water if they continue to make colonies in the folds of the leaves.