Aphid Troubles

I've been pretty lucky so far to not have too many bug problems, but my little knee-high sweet peas on my deck have recently gotten this stubborn infestation of aphids!

 Here you can see the little buggers all over the tender tips of my pretty little sweet peas.

There are also these little tan-ish colored bugs that seem to hang out with the aphids. I don't know what they are, but they look kinda like aphids and they don't wash off when I hose off the plants, I have to pick them off by hand.






So after many attempts to hose off the stinkers every day (supposed to be one way you can get rid of them) and them coming back every day I have decided I need to up my attack. I did a little quick research, and found out from the website garden.getridofthings.com that you can use a homemade solution of 2 teaspoon mild dish soap with a bottle of lukewarm water to spray the plants, and it's supposed to wash off their waxy protective coating and cause dehydration. Sounds like a good next step. They had several other suggestions as well, one of which was to also put oil in the water/soap mix to clog their pores and suffocate them, but I think I'll start with the soap & water (since it warns not to spray the oil solution on hot days as it can damage the plant) and see how that goes. Hopefully I can get rid of these stinkers before they do any real damage!