06/17/2026
Who Let the Bugs Out?
The warm weather has brought the bugs out, and they are hungry.
You may have noticed an increase in flies, butterflies, bees, and aphids throughout the garden. While aphids are often viewed as a pest, they can also be an indicator that a plant is experiencing stress.
Aphids are attracted to plants with sap rich in soluble nitrogen, amino acids, and sugars. When plants experience drought, root damage, temperature swings, overfertilization, or other stressors, they can struggle to convert these nutrients into proteins and structural tissue. The result is sap that is more attractive and nutritious to aphids.
This is why many growers recognize a connection between plant health and insect pressure. Healthy plants are not immune to aphids, and wind can carry them onto any plant, but vigorous, balanced plants often support smaller populations and recover more quickly.
If aphids are present, focus first on improving plant health through consistent watering, healthy soil, balanced nutrition, and avoiding excessive nitrogen applications. Aphids can also be removed mechanically with a strong spray of water, by pruning heavily infested leaves, blotting stems and foliage with shipping tape wrapped around your hand, or carefully vacuuming colonies with a shop vac.
Nature provides some of the best aphid control. Lacewings, hoverflies, parasitic wasps, and lady beetles are all beneficial insects that feed on aphids and can quickly reduce populations when conditions are favorable.
To attract beneficial insects, provide a continuous source of nectar and pollen throughout the season. Small-flowered plants such as sweet alyssum, dill, cilantro, parsley, yarrow, chamomile, and flowering brassicas are excellent choices. Allowing some herbs and vegetables to flower can provide an important food source when beneficial insect populations are building.
Habitat matters, too. Gardens with a diversity of flowers, herbs, vegetables, and perennials support far more beneficial insects than large monocultures. Leaving some perennial stems standing through winter, maintaining mulch, and preserving natural areas near the garden can provide shelter and overwintering sites for predators and parasitoids.
Before reaching for a spray bottle, take a closer look. Aphid populations often attract lacewing larvae, hoverfly larvae, lady beetles, and parasitic wasps within a week or two. In many cases, the aphids become the food source that draws in the very insects that will eventually bring the population back into balance.
A healthy Alaska garden often develops its own ecosystem. By growing resilient plants, providing habitat for beneficial insects, and using simple mechanical controls when needed, nature can do much of the work for you.
