Orgainic Help Please

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This message was edited Tuesday, Jun 19th 5:08 PM

There are several classes of organic pesticides that are relatively safe and others that are not specific and can take down your beneficial insects and mites as well.

I always ask: what bugs are bugging your plants (not bugging you)? Most bug on and around plants are harmless to beneficial so you must try to figure out which one(s) is(are) actually the problem.

Citrus oil-based pesticides are relatively safe. So are horticultural soap products (fatty potassium salts). In the same class are ultrafine horticultural oils (and their heftier cousins, the dormant oils to be used in the dormant season.) I sometimes need to use a combination of the hort. "soap" product and the hort. oil as a very effective spray if the material makes contact with the bug.

You can make a repellent by adding garlic extract/juice or hot pepper extract. You can add instead to the oil solution a tablespoon of baking soda to help control powdery mildew.

Hope this helps.

Debsey, here are some natural products out there that might be available: here it is: from Safer: Insecticidal Soap. It kills mites, aphids, mealybugs, whitefly, earwigs, pear slugs & other pests. It is not harmful to bees ladybugs and other beneficials. Natural Gaurd is another brand, so is Concern. These all contain things that kill soft bodied pests. I also think Shultz makes one too. Lisa

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This message was edited Tuesday, Jun 19th 5:08 PM

Soap will indeed hurt the good bugs especially in their larval stages.

Debsey, What are you using the soap for on cukes and squash? If for cuke or squash bugs get another insectide as soap works only on soft bodied critters like aphids and catapillers.

SA great book for organic pest control is The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control; edited by Barbra Ellis and Fern Marshall Bradley.

Organic pest control to be successful is a multifaceted afgfair. Integrated pest management to the extreme. You will need an arsenal of knowledge and a balanced, clean environment for it to work. Good Luck

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This message was edited Tuesday, Jun 19th 5:09 PM

Debsey,

I am really sorry about your plant losses but let me encourage you to study on what has been taking out your plants and maybe get some local help to minimize future outbreaks. All bugs and related creatures have lifecycles timed to the seasons and within the seasons to temperature or other triggers. Lots of times the spend the winter in the soil or in protected sites. If you can get at them during their downtimes, there will be fewer bothering your plants in the Spring and Summer.

We can advise you from afar only as well was you can describe and identify the problems. Reaching for a spray, organic or synthetic, won't help without a basic understanding of the relationship between the bugs and the plants ====understanding the lifecycles of good and bad bugs.

I haven't lived in Zone4 since I left NH just about the time the Dutch Elm disease and beetles arrived. The beetles ate nearly everything as I remember, but I didn't really become a gardener on my own until I got married and had children.