Organic pesticide arsenal

12 years ago

I have a 30' x 45' vegetable garden with lots of different vegetables. I have tried my best at companion planting and I inspect the garden regularly. Everything looks pretty good.

However, I have many pests that I need to control regularly and I was wondering what the best organic "pesticide" arsenal is recommended.

Here are some of my most abundant pests: aphids, caterpillars & slugs, cucumber beetle, flea and Japanese beetles, white fly, and now possibly a vine borer on my pumpkins.

The only pesticides that I've been using on my garden are: slug traps, garden dust, diatomaceous earth, pepper/garlic spray, homemade soap spray, and hand picking.

I haven't used BT yet. I don't want to hurt butterflies but I don't have any specific plants to attract them either. But the dill will be up soon...

Are these ok to use in an organic garden and are they effective? Is there something different that I should add to my organic arsenal? Thanks!

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (3)

Kimmsr
12 years ago
Aphids, generally, are attracted to plants wiht lush green growth, many research sources say because of too much soil Nitrogen. The simplest short term means of control is with a sharp blast of water that knocks them off the plants. Long term control is to be sure the soil is good and healhty with balanced nutrients.
Whether the Bacillus thuringiensis will harm the butterflies you want around or not will depend on which one you use as well as which plants it gets sprayed on. Judicious use will protect those you want around.
Slugs like the environment that organic gardeners make, cool and moist with lots of decaying organic matter (mulches) as do many other wee insects. Floating row covers can help with several insect pests. Judicious use of any pesticde is always the best use of them and companion planting can help as can a garden of wild flowers that will help attract the beneficials that predate the insect pests.
However, the single best way of pest and disease control is to be sure the soil is a good healthy soil that will grow strong and healthy plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cucumber beetle
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
12 years ago
Sunny, your list is all organic, rest assured. I'm glad that you've given the Bt some careful consideration,as it is being used much too freely in recent years. But if you have a large area of a favorite host plant to protect, don't hesitate to use it, as a last resort.

I don't use DE in the outside garden areas, anymore. I can't justify it's broad spectrum use. But I still keep it around for our garage, where black widow spiders have been known to proliferate. Yikes!

I'd add neem oil to your arsenal, as well as a horticultural oil of some sort. Both are extremely useful for a wide variety of problems (including some diseases). I have also begun using a product called 'Surround'. It's a kaolin clay suspension, which sprayed on susceptible plants, discourages chewing pests and others. I originally got it for the Japanese beetles (works great), but have since used it on other plants. It also protects against heat!
Related Discussions
Organic Pesticide for Dusting
Q
Comments (9)
The last time I checked, the organic certifiers around here were still allowing Rotenone, but only under certain conditions. I agree that it shouldn't be used around ponds or lakes, or any time when runoff is a concern. Rotenone and Pyrethins are "big guns", and most garden pest situations need just a little gun (a squirt of soapy water, for example). You're right about the prevention part. Healthy plants can defend themselves. Organic gardening is, sadly, not immune from the societal desire to be "saved by technology"-- people want products to fix the problem. They overlook cultivation techniques (life cycle disruption), physical controls (row covers, hand-picking), and natural assistance through beneficials and "trap" crops. I don't think we can change the mindset of most gardeners from spray-and-pray to holistic understanding. The consumer culture is nearly inextricable from the life in the West. Most gardeners would rather BUY the perfect home landscape than work for it. IMO, the best way to minimize the harm being done to ecosystems is for organic marketers to promote alternative products-- things like Rotenone and Pyrethins-- that are more benign than the typical garden-centre arsenal of poisons. This way, the average suburban gardener (who has neither the time nor the inclination to learn about the stuff that is second nature to most of us on this forum) will become less destructive. Joe Homeowner can switch products (or service providers) far more easily than he can learn a whole new set of behaviours. At the same time we need to reduce the selection of poisons on the shelves. We need to legislate for changes to regulatory agencies that fast-track the latest bio-cides to market, that ignore impartial research that questions the safety of approved products, that seek to water down organic standards. If we manage a few wins on the consumer front, the industrial/commercial use of pesticides may turn as well. I am cynical, though. I had an argument on another forum with some very nice ladies who insisted that their democratic right to save a nickle on garden supplies at Sprawl-Mart far outweighed the huge environmental and social costs. The need to buy our way out of trouble (even the environmental kind) is deeply ingrained. Can wisdom and reason win against greed and materialism? Hmmm.
...See More
Organic vs inorganic arsenic/uptake by brown rice--a fishy story
Q
Comments (5)
Thanks for the link, wayne. And nc -- that makes sense, that the inorganic would be on the outside, the organic arsenic on the inside (mostly). We used to always rinse rice -- can easily go back to that. We've been eating Lundberg OG too. When this story first came out I thought -- just buy from CA and be done with it. The new Consumer Reports "point" system is what threw me. Maybe they're just out to sell some memberships using fear? Thanks for the info, all.
...See More
Organic pesticide for large market garden
Q
Comments (3)
The only thing I've found to work with vine borers and cucumber beetles is row covers. Two summers ago I had basically no cucumber harvest and very little zucchini harvest, despite planting every 2 weeks. Last summer I covered winter squash, zucchini and cukes with row covers until the plants flowered - I even did a bit of hand pollinating to keep the plants covered longer, but that got old fast. I had a decent harvest of squash and cukes all summer long. I still had cucumber beetle issues, but no squash borers. I use spinosad, insecticidal soap, and Pyganic as a last resort. I keep bees and am very careful about what I spray. In the last few years there's been a push to use spinosad over BT as it's supposed to be more environmentally friendly, but it will kill bees for a few hours after it's sprayed, so I try to spray early in the day or when it's cloudy. I never spray flowering plants. Insecticidal soap can be very effective if you spray often enough to kill larvae. It only kills soft bodied insects so is safe around bees and beneficials. I only use Pyganic when I have a major infestation, such as the Japanese beetles that decimated part of my orchard. Or when I've reached the limit of applications with other pesticides. I think the organic rules only allow me to spray insecticidal soap 6 times per crop (I'd have to double check that), so I have to switch to spinosad and Pyganic by the end of the growing season. The other thing I use is Surround. It's pretty effective in my apple orchard, but I have to coat 3 times, and if there's a lot of rain I can't keep up with it. I've tried on cucumbers, but the plants grow too fast to keep them coated. Surround does work well on eggplant, providing that you don't get too much rain. I only used Neem once, and it killed some bees so I never tried it again. I think if you use some basic precautions it would be ok, but I was under the impression it was nontoxic to bees, and I was wrong. It definitely kills bees. The fungicides we use are Serenade and to a lesser extent, liquid copper. I couldn't grow apples here at all without Serenade, I also use it for blight and powdery mildew.
...See More
Are organic pesticides bad for lady bugs and other beneficial bugs?
Q
Comments (10)
Insecticidal soap generally targets the types of insects many beneficials - like ladybugs - prefer to feed on so while not actually harming the beneficials, using it certainly won't encourage them :-) And Bt is a highly targeted bacterial organism so using it generally is of minimal concern to any beneficials. Both need to be applied when a problem is present - neither is really preventative. The soap is a contact pesticide and the Bt is ingested but can be washed off foliage with rains so should be applied when the cats are present and actively feeding.
...See More
Sunny_Dee
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks for your suggestions and confirmation that I'm in fact doing organic gardening. I have been trying hard to watch out for the beneficials and control only the pests.

I just purchased some BT and Neem oil yesterday. I plan on using the BT in limited areas like on the corn. I'll keep the other suggestions that you've provided in mind too.

Thanks again!!

Organic pesticide arsenal

Comments (3)

Kimmsr

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7

Related Discussions

Sunny_Dee
Original Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Organic pesticide arsenal

Comments (3)

Kimmsr

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7

Related Discussions

Sunny_DeeOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Sunny_Dee
Original Author