I'm at that point in my tomato-and-pepper- growing where I take the gallon cans out of the greenhouse every morning, place them on the ground, water them, leave them out all day, then put them back into the greenhouse before night falls and close the door. It's a pain (there's 34 peppers and 36 tomatoes), but I do it because it's not yet warm enough at night for these plants to thrive, without cover. This is why we built the greenhouse after all. I could leave them in there all day, and sometimes I do if it's cold or rainy; but if it's sunny, taking them out allows them to slowly harden and adapt to our daily temperatures.

Another thing it allows me to do is really inspect each plant, as I lift it and carry it back and forth. Today I noticed a smattering of aphids, scattered here and there among the plants. They had wings, which suggests they moved in recently from another plant. Aphids can undergo a hormonal change that allows them to grow wings, when the environment isn't to their liking any longer - the host plant is too crowded or when they decide to switch from winter to summer plants. It's an annoying trait.

The good news is that they aren't very good flyers, and they can't see terribly well, so that works in our favor. Another thing that works in our favor is predatory insects. I've talked before about lacewings, and snakeflies, and lady beetles. But over the course of the last month I've been noticing these other little guys. I finally figured out what they are.

Predatory thrips! These are good thrips that eat bad thrips. They also eat aphids, whiteflies, and mites. These are tiny little superheroes!

So I didn't do anything to my tomatoes or peppers. I didn't spray them with pesticides (which I rarely do, not even organic ones). I didn't blast them with water. I may have rubbed a few baby aphids off the leaves. But mostly I just let everything be. If I kill the aphids, I also kill the predators, and I don't want to do that. I want the predators to multiply and FEED.