Unfortunately the aphid situation I mentioned earlier had gotten out of control. Almost all of the seedlings that I was keeping in a 20 gallon aquarium got them and died from them. I lost my tomatillos (doh!), 3 tomato plants, and all of my dill, cilantro, and fennel. I kept applying the hot pepper wax, but I think there were just too many aphids and the seedlings were very susceptible to them.

But the good news is that the aphids pretty much stayed contained to the seedlings in the aquarium. My peppers, basil, and most of my tomatoes were all kept under a grow light a few feet away, and I only noticed aphids on one tomato plant.

The three tomato plants that died were essentially backups, so that's not too major. Over the weekend I planted some dill and cilantro seeds directly in my herb bed. Hopefully they'll do well using the direct sowing method - we'll see. Worst case I'll need to go out and buy some herb plants - but what can you do. I'll obviously be tomatillo free again this year. The live plants I bought last year didn't do well so I won't try that again. Oh well.

I'm keeping an eye on the surviving plants and checking them daily. So far so good - they've all been aphid free for about 5 days. I've moved them outside onto our front porch to start the hardening off process. I also purchased some organic sesame oil spray to use if I notice the aphids coming back. Hopefully I'll be putting these in the ground within a week or two.