Greetings,

I am new here, and this is my first gardening adventure. I have a pot
on my patio, and in it I have five basil plants and an oregano plant
that I purchased as seedlings. Everything was going fine, and they
were growing well, but I have recently noticed a great number of little
critters taking over on the tips of most of the basil plants. I
suspect that they are aphids, or something like that, although I am
fairly naive about different insects and how to deal with them. So I
am soliciting advice: how should I get rid of them? I plan to use the
basil in cooking, so I hope to avoid an unpleasant, toxic sort of
treatment. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I have provided
the following two pictures to help illustrate the problem.

http://i4.tinypic.com/10d76ac.jpg
http://i4.tinypic.com/10d786u.jpg

Also, I wonder if you think that I am overcrowding the pot? I know I
have the plants spaced much closer than the typically quoted value, but
I have read that container gardens can accomodate a much greater
density of plants, but I could not find a good guideline for this.

Thank you for whatever help you may provide!

Andy

that's a great looking pot you have there and everything looks great!
you can zap those mites with insect soap. the best i know of is
"bon-neem" http://www.yardener.com/Bon-NeembyBonide.html

The first thing you do is cut the plants back to about 3 or 4 nodes and
harvest the tops, this will make them put 2x as many top branches.
Take the harvested basil and put it in a collander and spray the hell
out of it with the sink sprayer to remove the aphids ( which by now are
basil flavored anyway) and use it. If you are not ready top use it pack
it into an ice cube tray and add water and freeze until you are ready.
Now take the plant and set the sink spray for warm and hose down the
plant and you will remove most of the aphids.
This is something you can repeat every 4 days or so, you are
controlling the aphids by washing them down the drain not poisoning
anything.
Aphids like lush new growth the best, are you feeding your potted
plants heavily?