Perennial Pest Control

I am in the process of converting my garden from an annual crop base to a perennial one (haven't been able to swing my better half yet on converting it all to a full blown food forest).  Last year I swapped out my regular kale for sea kale.  It came in quite nicely, but unfortunately succumbed to an aphid infestation.  I started looking through studies on natural forms of aphid control and came across this one which shows companion plants that can help.  The table in the study lists the specific plants and the mechanism they use.  I think I will be trying some of these this year.  Has anyone tried this before, or had success with other methods of perennial pest/disease control (or just aphids in general)?  

I've found in my own garden the best form of pest control is to make sure plants are growing under the best conditions.  I've noticed my plants only tend to get problematic levels of insects if the plants are stressed.  Typically in my garden this means getting too hot and/or too dry.  If the plants are happy the insect "pests" stay at a level where their predators keep them under control.  

I agree with Tyler above. My greenhouse often gets aphids in the winter when it's all under a greenhouse. It seems to be correlated with the plants having too much nutrition in the soil, and definitely when it gets very hot in the greenhouse and if there isn't enough ventilation. I squish the aphids by hand where are just a few, and that helps to keep them under control. Also watering more frequently to both reduce wilting and maybe reduce the intense nutrition in the soil. When the greenhouse comes off in early summer the aphids invariably reduce back to very few or none really visible.

I like the method of companion planting to help deter pest.

    Aphids: chives, coriander, nasturtium.
   Ants: tansy.
   Asparagus beetle: pot marigold.
   Bean beetle: marigold, nasturtium, rosemary.
   Cabbage moth: hyssop, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, southernwood, tansy, thyme.
   Carrot fly: rosemary, sage.

https://www.thespruce.com/companion-planting-1402735

For aphid, you control the ants:

https://permies.com/t/10/critters/ants-aphids

And I agree with Tyler and Rebecca.

Ive been fortunate to not have bug issues on my perrenials which is currently blackberry, asparagus  and wolfberry (goji). The balance is natural natives (mustang grape, argarita, wild blackberry(dewberry?) My trees are not mature enough yet.

I watched an episode of The Permaculture Orchard about aphids.  It was interesting. His theory was too much nitrogen attracted aphids.  He told a story of a lady that was confused because one tree had aphids the rest didnt. She was explaining how this tree was treated the same as the others. During the conversation, the husband fessed up and said every morning he goes to that one tree and urinates. 300+ days a year.

I shared some thoughts on how to manage aphids with nutrition management here: https://permies.com/t/146343/prevent-manage-aphids-insects-managing

I'm not sure whether it being perennial makes a difference. For me it seems the keys to insect control are not spraying poisons, and having a wide variety of flowering plants, preferably natives around and in your gardens. The solution is thus ecological: the plants provide food and habitat for predator bugs (also pollinators) when the pest bug prey isn't available, and refraining from the use of poison allows these bugs--these complex food chains--to thrive. That said I am not entirely without pest problems, and I do spray two things, both naturally occurring organisms: Bt for cabbage worms and spinosad for potato beetles. The potato beetles I only see maybe one year in four, but they can multiply and get out of hand--then spraying twice with spinosad eliminates the problem. The two kinds of cabbage worm hit all my brassicas every year, repeatedly (although they bother bok choy less, I notice, another reason it's my favorite brassica). I used to sometimes say, I only have ten plants, I'll just mash all the worms. But that would require an hour on my knees, and have to be repeated in a few days--I'd miss a few. The plants would end up trashed. The Bt works well. I have a couple of tansy plants in my main garden and ironically they suffer the worst pest damage, from a thing called four-lined bug which has damaged the plants and any nearby basil and peppers the last three years. But I don't do anything because I don't know of an easy cure and because they hit in late May and are gone by the end of June, after which the plants recover.

Tyler Ludens wrote:I've found in my own garden the best form of pest control is to make sure plants are growing under the best conditions.  I've noticed my plants only tend to get problematic levels of insects if the plants are stressed.  Typically in my garden this means getting too hot and/or too dry.  If the plants are happy the insect "pests" stay at a level where their predators keep them under control.  

I agree with this.  I believe that soil health will eliminate a lot of plant problems, especially when it comes to pests.

://permies.com/t/123928/Growing-Plants-builds-soil-health

https://permies.com/t/91663/talk-soil-minerals

I also recommend the work of Dr. Elaine Ingham.

https://www.soilfoodweb.com/how-it-works/