Project Name: February 2026 – How I cooked a sweet potato and the epic battle with aphids and fungus gnats
Project Objectives: To grow a few of my own sweet potatoes just for joy. Plus, to have enough of my own healthy and strong seedlings of chilli, peppers, and leeks, not only for my family but also for many friends.
Business Case & Project Scope:
You would think that after making several gardening management fails right at the beginning, everything would turn out well. Well, no! "How I cooked a sweet potato" would be a great article. It is just a pity that this is not an article from the Recipes category, but from the Garden category :D Long story short, I found a sweet potato. First, I overwatered it. Then I saved it. Then, following advice on the net, I put it on top of our snake Floki's terrarium. And he cooked it. Except not really :D
But I will get to that later. I need to process it first :D Because a much bigger disaster happened to me than the one I just described. The old chilli plants that I am overwintering at home must have had overwintering aphids on them. Not a few, not dozens, it was literally a huge flood of aphids! And so I had to start an epic battle. But... before I reacted—honestly, my reaction time is quite slow due to the age of all my Junior Helpers—those aphids also jumped onto the small seedlings of new chilli, peppers, leeks, and Minisprint F1 cucumbers. Well, the season is starting nicely for us :D
Resources & Target Deliverables:
Here should be a list of seeds I sowed. But instead, I have to provide a different list now, the battle one.
- Aphids
- Aphids
- Fungus gnats
- Aphids
- Fungus gnats
- And just in case someone forgot, once again – aphids :D
Critical Infrastructure & Hacks:
Only one hack fits here right now – spray your chilli plants that you want to overwinter preventively while they are still outside or in the greenhouse. And then wash them with water. You will save yourself a lot of future problems. Trust me.
EXECUTION PHASE:
Phase 1: We have one iron in the fire
And now I can get back to those sweet potatoes. When my sweet potato suffered from overwatering and caught mold, I was worried that even the three sprouts it already had would die. So I picked them off and put the 2 taller ones into one shot glass. And 1 smaller one into another shot glass. In the end, the smaller one looks very promising. It made one nice leaf. And it is not growing further for now. But we have hope! The sweet potato did not make any more sprouts, because our snake Floki gave it so much heat that it literally turned into mud. But thank goodness, because I only noticed it when a terrible smell came from the terrarium, so at first I was scared that Floki died. Luckily no! I was really scared!
Phase 2: Battle procedure
I had to take a radical battle approach to the whole situation. Cucumbers were topped up with soil to reduce humidity in the cup. The leek was cut down to about 4 cm. The rosemary, which I have had for 18 years, had to be trimmed a lot. Old chilli plants were sprayed with a substance that was supposed to glue the aphids. Which succeeded. Unfortunately, I did not wash the plants with water afterwards so they could recover faster. And one Habanero Madame Jeanette chilli lost this whole battle. Honor to its memory! I had it for a respectable 9 years! I only have one left now, so I have to take good care of it.
Phase 3: Watchmaker's work with a brush
But I could not use mass spraying on the small chilli and pepper seedlings. That would block their pores. So I took a cup of water, added a drop of dish soap, and started removing the aphids one by one with a small brush. Did it work? Well...
Phase 4: Battle with fungus gnats
This is probably the only thing that went well :D I placed those yellow sticky traps for fungus gnats among all the seedlings, and also among the old chilli plants. They caught the small black flies within 2 days. Excellent! Then I let the soil dry out a bit and sprayed a spray against fungus gnat larvae into it, about 2-3 cm deep. Excellent! This pest was eliminated, and all plants started growing beautifully again.
Phase 5: Final Deliverable
I would love to write here that I managed to win the battle with aphids. Not a chance. It is a bit of a never-ending story. Unfortunately. Aphids appeared on the small seedlings again. So the watchmaker's work will continue. And the aphids on the old chilli? I am really sad about that. I will have to spray the glue on them again, then wash them off, and hope that all of them survive without harm this time. Hopefully!
CURRENT STATUS:
The epic battle with aphids continues. But I will win it :D At least after the battle with fungus gnats, I can finally water and fertilize everything properly. Those seedlings and old chilli plants really need it now.
