Hi there, I'm pretty new to gardening so was hoping for a bit of advice. I'm growing tomatos, chillis, peppers, spring onions and salad leaves in pots and was hoping you could recommend me a bug killer. Last year I just had one chilli plant and it got white fly :( really don't want all my efforts this year to be ruined by them! What are the best products to try? I want to put all my plants out side on the balcony this week and I'm thinking prevention may be better than cure?

I was going to post something similar, but in a what is the best sort of way of reducing bugs down in a child friendly/ possibly organic type of way :lol: I have heard that spraying with dilute washing up liquid can help with aphids (not sure how organic that would be) or possibly spraying with nettle of comfrey tea - I can't say how good any of those things are though but will certainly be giving some things a go this year that dont involve conventional bug killer. Someone on one of the other threads (mainly talking about slugs) suggested growing marigolds with things like tomatoes etc to help with white fly.

Beware of frost as it it is a little early to be putting tender plants outside yet.Leave them out during the day and put undercover at nights .
I have found beer traps to be brilliant for slug control.
Could it be that yellow in marigolds attract ladybirds which are are predator of aphids

I like the marigold idea, am I too late to plant them? If not would putting one in each of my pots with the other plants be ok? Think I want to use a conventional bug killer too though, know it's not the best but if my balcony gets a fly problem so does my flat! Thanks fot the frost warning, will wait another few weeks then - I'm a bit clueless, thank goodness I can't get slugs, there's so much to think about, I'd be hopeless if I had a real garden to look after!

not sure about bugs but kids like to take of the afids with their fingers and mush them. We only have two rose bushes in the community garden in Broomhall, however we do have major slug problem. I've been laying slug traps which are small pieces of flat scrap wood/ ply . The slugs go under at sunrise and you can squash them with your foot by turning them over and stamping on them. There will also be a few in the soil just under the wood. After two years of catastrophic leaf loss there is surprising satisfaction to be had. also to see plants in full leaf and not looking like swiss cheese. i usually get about 15 to twenty a day which is much more than the seven i managed to get in beer traps last year.