r/PepperLovers • u/Extra-Ear8463 Pepper Lover • 2d ago
Help!
How do i get rid of these??? Been blasting away with neem oil to no effect. Does putting soapy water on them help?
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u/thetravelkoala Pepper Lover 2d ago
Google says these are leaf footed bug nymphs. Adult bugs have to be manually removed and crushed (with gloves). For any eggs or little baby ones that can't yet fly, fill a dish with soapy water, hold it under the leaf and push them in it. They will drown and die.
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u/KAZVorpal Pepper Lover 2d ago
I'd recommend spraying the bugs with a spray bottle of slightly dish detergentish water, rather than having to manually interact with every single bug, quite a challenge if one has a lot of pepper plants.
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u/thetravelkoala Pepper Lover 2d ago
Agreed but these are quite large and im not sure LIGHT soapy water would work, and spraying them with a lot of soap may harm the plant. I'm not an expert though.
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u/KAZVorpal Pepper Lover 2d ago edited 2d ago
Dilute dish detergent worked on box elder bugs, which are a lot bigger than these guys.
I think it's that the low-protein waxy cuticle of actual bugs (insects that really suck) is way more vulnerable to surfactants than most other complex life.
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u/Soft-Cryptographer-1 Pepper Lover 2d ago
Look like immature boxelder bugs. Never seen them on peppers before personally!
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u/InvestigatorWide7649 Pepper Lover 2d ago
Some of them look like boxelders, but the nymphs are typically way smaller, have no wings and are a light reddish/coral pink colour. I have 2 box elder trees in my yard, it's a battle every year 😩 I think they're leaf footed bugs, not box elders in this case. Soapy water with some vegetable oil should still take care of them. I spray down the trees in my yard once per week and it keeps them at bay. The way the trees are visually crawling if I miss a week is a little unsettling.
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u/KAZVorpal Pepper Lover 2d ago
Yeah, I was just saying elsewhere that I used dish soap spray on box elder bugs. These do look like those, but I don't think boxelder bugs breed on anything but box elders and related woody plants like maple trees.
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u/Oh_Lawd_He_commin420 Pepper Lover 2d ago
Diamotactious earth, spread it all over the ant and leave it for a day or two, wear a mask
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u/Local-Celery-9538 Pepper Lover 1d ago
You can try to fight them with products, but the best way I’ve found is to just get right in and grab them.
That picture there would be a perfect ambush. Just go in there with an open hand and grab the whole batch and squish em in your hands. The first time is a little icky, but it gets easier.
They are quick, so you have to be quicker.
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u/KAZVorpal Pepper Lover 2d ago
LIGHTLY soapy water. Strong detergent harms plant cells as well as these literal bugs.
The crappy way Reddit's feed works, it shows only the image and subject, not a sample of the text, and so it looked to me like perhaps the bugs had posted a plea for help.
"My family and I were innocently sucking on this pepper plant, when vicious humans started suing us for trespass, here is a link to our kickstarter defense fund!"
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u/Extra-Ear8463 Pepper Lover 2d ago
HAHA i needed the laugh. Does dawn work or do you recommend something else?
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u/KAZVorpal Pepper Lover 2d ago
Preferably high noon.
Any dishwashing detergent should be fine, detergents, almost by definition, dissolve the lipids in cell walls. But Dawn is supposed to have fewer problematic secondary ingredients, I think, so that should be good.
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u/ReindeerOverall577 Pepper Lover 2d ago
Well, all of the ways Ive heard of to deal with leaf footed bugs is to vacuum them up, seriously. I mean I just sprayed em off with a hose but a vacuum *does sound pretty effective...
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u/Dangerous-Recipe1233 Pepper Lover 1d ago
I’ve used a hose to blast them off when they were all over the plant. That really helped. They did not return. I have also just done the quick grab and smoosh the whole leaf with my gardening gloves on. Yucky to be sure. I’m squeamish that way. Gross.
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u/Ok_Money_9024 Intermediate 2d ago
These look like assassin bugs to be honest which are kinda beneficial.
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u/Ok_Money_9024 Intermediate 2d ago
But do look very similar and the ones I see are typically solo so could be nymphs
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u/ZinbaluPrime Pepper Lover 2d ago
I have no idea what those bugs are, but neem oil and soap water helps with aphids. Those are way too big for aphids.
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u/KAZVorpal Pepper Lover 2d ago edited 2d ago
They still are some kind of actual bug (hexapods with sucking mouthparts and waxy exoskeletons), so spraying them with very dilute dish soap should work fine.
[edit]: Neem oil is a terrible solution for this case, because it takes weeks to work on larger insects. It slowly starves the bugs, and prevents molting...at best. Works okay on baby aphids, so it's a good prophylactic for plants that seem only minimally infected.
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u/SnooCookies7119 Pepper Lover 2d ago
DO NOT use disgusting soap or pesticides please, just put lots of grass seeds or sunflower seeds near the plant , the birds will swarm in and eat the insects since it’s part of their diet and the insects will be drawn away from the plant
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u/PhoenixRising256 Pepper Lover 1d ago
"DO NOT act now please. Surrender this years harvest and spend effort doing something that won't work next year"
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u/TheFireConvoy Pepper Lover 2d ago
Hey, just sharing what actually works since most comments here are regurgitating bad info or misidentifying the bugs.
These are leaf-footed bugs (and nymphs). They suck—literally and figuratively. Here is the fix from extensive personal experience.
The mix: 1-liter spray bottle + 3 tbsp Castile soap (Dr. Bronner’s works great). It's a strong mix, but it has never harmed my peppers or tomatoes. You can rinse plants afterward if you want.
Adults (priority): Adults are damn near impossible to suffocate, so your goal is grounding them immediately so they can't fly. Spray them with frothy soap (holding a partially full bottle at an angle gets good froth). Hold a wide-brim bowl of soapy water underneath to catch them when they drop, or use a fly swatter to knock them down and crush them (fair warning: they stink).
Nymphs & eggs: Nymphs die in about 15 seconds from a direct hit—if not, reapply immediately. Check the canopy every few days for new reddish nymphs and cylindrical eggs laid in a neat line. Just pluck and toss any leaves with eggs.
Skip the sunflowers: People claim trap cropping works because they love sunflowers. In reality, it just creates a local breeding ground and bug hotel that will infest the rest of your garden with these flying insects twice as fast.