.. I've now found out why I have so many ants around my currant bushes. I looked, and there's thousands (literally) of aphids under most of the leaves of each of my currants (2x red, 1x black, 1xwhite, 1xblackberry). Each mound (the mound of them are huge - loads of tiny beggers!) of these has ants farming them - all over them. Difficult to squish all of them as the ants are trying to bite me? Got bit a few times yesterday.
Anyway.. there's no fruit on these (planted them maybe in march) - wasn't expecting any for the first year anyway.
If I leave them to it, will they affect the bush's develop of fruit next year? Each bush is growing really well... but I presume my previous post about rusty marks on the leaves is from these aphids.
If the bush will continue to grow fine - I don't mind leaving them, as it's going to be a job and a half to get rid of them by hand - but don't want to do so if it's going to cause problems later on (i.e. where do they lay eggs - will they surive winter, etc)
Anyway.. there's no fruit on these (planted them maybe in march) - wasn't expecting any for the first year anyway.
If I leave them to it, will they affect the bush's develop of fruit next year? Each bush is growing really well... but I presume my previous post about rusty marks on the leaves is from these aphids.
If the bush will continue to grow fine - I don't mind leaving them, as it's going to be a job and a half to get rid of them by hand - but don't want to do so if it's going to cause problems later on (i.e. where do they lay eggs - will they surive winter, etc)
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