Will bud washing remove aphids?

[OlderNOTwiser]

Last week I discovered I had a small amount of aphids. I kept on them, wiping and squishing. Saturday I visited a hemp farm that was harvesting and borrowed a dozen or so Lady bugs. I also saw what a real infestation looks like. Whole plants headed to the burn barrel that looked like they were crawling with them. Anyway...

I have my lone plant tented for rain and frost (first one was Saturday morning) and let the critters loose. Even in the semi-enclosed area it didn't take long to lose the bugs. Yesterday I was looking and discovered a bud rot patch. Ripped the top off that bud and discarded it. I'm just coming in from my morning inspection and bug squashing and I'm afraid the aphids are winning. I'd like another week and I'm sure I can beat the weather. I'm not going to beat the aphids, though. So, I'm going to harvest early. I have a nice amount of brown pistils, trichomes are still quite glassy but if I wait it will be a total loss.

So the question here is whether washing the buds will get out the aphids, kill them and leave them, or something else? I don't dare hang them in my grow tent to dry and risk every crop going forward so what do I do? Any rot gets cut out first of course but those freaking aphids are tiny!

If I do wash (likely at this point) what flavor do you use? H2O2 and water? Lemon and baking soda? How dry do you need to get them before hanging in the tent?

[OlderNOTwiser]

Well, had to give her the axe. Aphids were winning and bud rot was beginning to be an issue. I chopped her Tuesday and then washed the buds. I know there are "varying opinions" on the practice but I felt I had no alternative due to the rapid increase in what I was seeing under leaves and stuck on resin. I used three coolers in lieu of 5 gallon buckets. I think it made for an easier wash with all the extra room. I did a mild baking soda, a mild peroxide and of course a very thorough rinse. I knew from what I'd removed while trimming I'd seen many hundreds (thousands?) of aphids but couldn't realistically asses the numbers already deep in the flowers.

The first cooler was just nasty with the bugs. Second still bad but not as much so and the rinse still got a fair amount. I then hung them for a bit in the sun and breeze before hanging in my mower shed with a fan overnight. I then inspected for residuals with a magnifier and used the sun to pop them with the magnifying glass. Kind of sick but I couldn't get my fingers into the nooks and crannies. Anyway, I did find a couple dozen. Compared to the (at least) several hundred I cleaned off and the likely thousands I trimmed that doesn't seem too bad.

No clue as to whether any of my yield will be of any use but I did get through my first grow with a ton of knowledge and experience I hope to use indoors this winter. I figured that even if it is not usable I should try to learn harvesting, trimming, manicuring, drying and curing from A to Z and just store that knowledge for later. So I'm not totally bummed how this ended with bugs. I do have regrets and even more questions.

The biggest regret is I didn't do any of this for 28 freaking years because of workplace drug tests! And I am a gardener and love growing stuff and this is right in my wheel house.Dammit!

The biggest regret specific to this grow is that I just randomly found the seed while looking for something else and impulsively planted it. I have no clue what she is/was but I know from what I harvested, usable or not, there were so many more new flowers still to come it was sad. Note to self for next year...start in April indoor, temper during May and set outside by June 1. This year I never even remembered setting a seed aside until after the first week of June. This morning was the third frost in six days so there was no more time for her to finish up. And of course no way to rid her of bugs and still be of any use.

Now, the only real question concerns the buds/flowers and aphids. I put a plastic painters cloth over my trellis and kind of tented her in for the last weeks due to rain and the frosts. I noticed the pistils turning brown and was anticipating good things. Then I started to believe (still do) that the pistils weren't ripening at all. They were dead! A week later I discovered the aphids. As they are sap suckers I'm surmising they sucked the life from the most mature buds and they died. What should have been amber was a sick brown and crispy. A lot of that came off in the washing. But new flowers coming in behind were very moist and juicy but weren't ever going to ripen as the bugs were deep into their mischief by then. Sound about right?

The next big deal will be my new grow tent. I'd been hanging some incidental trims in there to figure out drying cycles and such BEFORE I knew of the aphids. I assume the area has been compromised. What is a good (practical) way to cleanse the tent before I start my first indoor grow?

[OlderNOTwiser]

Decent harvest if it turns out it's not damaged goods.

[starramus]

Have you cremated any aphids in a smoke yet?

[OlderNOTwiser]

Probably. I think it's the spicy aftertaste. ;-)