With reference to Colorado beetles, in my experience the best approach is to scout the plants for beetles every two or three days and squish them. Start early because the adults emerge first and they're not too bad, but they produce lots of young which do the worst damage. I don't use a pesticide because the beetles are cleverer than I am; potatoes and their predecessor species have been developing pesticides for, say, 500,000 years. The beetles have overcome these pesticides one by one in a sort of arms race. Where potatoes are grown in bulk, including parts of Michigan, Colorado beetles have overcome every pesticide tried on them; the more they are challenged, the more they develop resistance. It's not surprising that the beetles can overcome artificial pesticides developed these last 50 years. So I don't bother with pesticides and I squish 'em. For more species of insect pests, the most useful are the umpteen species of minute wasps, ranging from 1/10 inch to 1/50 inch long. You never see them but they do great work parasitizing pest insect eggs and larvae. The best way to encourage them is to grow the small-flower plants they like most. #1 is boneset, #2 is sweet alyssum, and somewhere in the top ten is Riddell's goldenrod. This is a slow solution. Similarly, doing ones best not to harm those black ground beetles is the slow-but-sure answer to slugs. Flee beetles on eggplant and brassicas, however, can only be stopped by using row covers on immature plants, which doesn't get rid of the beetles of course. So my advice is to think long term and hold off on the pesticides which, after all, kill as many beneficial insects as they do pests. Regards, Peter.

No chemicals or pesticides for years and as of the last two years, no tilling... and my garden gets better every year. The only things I use sparingly (so sparingly that I haven't used any so far this year) is an organic fungicide and some BT for controlling caterpillars (also have not used this so far). The only scary thing about using no pesticides and no herbicides is that things will always get worse before they get better. Basically, detrimental insects are the first to show up, they are opportunistic feeders and when presented with tender and delicious garden crops they will begin feasting. Their numbers will likely grow large assuming they have enough to eat and ideal conditions in other respects. Only once their numbers are fairly significant will the beneficial predatory insects begin to show up because their food (other insects) is now readily available. For my garden, the first on the scene are aphids, then come the flea beetles... Their numbers grow large, my plants leaves begin to look like they're part of a shooting range with holes all over the place. Then the ladybugs show up, then the hoverflies, then green lacewings and I get treated to the site of a praying mantis every now and then. The aphids nearly disappear, the flea beetles reduce in number so as to become non-issue and sometimes they disappear completely. Organic gardening without pesticides and herbicides is easy, once you figure out what works in your area - that's where the research and trial and error begin. The biggest thing I learned is that gardening without pesticides and herbicides means you need to plan things out and do things differently, generally at different times of year. I was always taught (non-organic) to till and add fertilizer in the spring, give your plants some "blue water" once they’re a certain size, and some more at regular intervals for the rest of the season; When the bugs show-up, spray them. For weeds, I was always told to use block material or landscape fabric, it’ll keep weeds from coming through. What I do now is no-till with mulching about 3-4 times a year using locally grown hay (preferably alfalfa hay - though it's more expensive and I generally go with a mix) maintaining a 4-6" deep layer for most of the year. The hay mulch smothers just about every weed, retains soil moisture, protects the soil life, and feeds the soil as it breaks down; It's great stuff. In the fall I top-dress my amendments: Compost made from kitchen scraps, some manure (free) from a local horse farm, chopped leaves and grass, and then hay over the top - It rots over the fall, winter, and early spring. Then (early spring) I add more hay and then I plant directly into it. By the time plants go into the soil, they have everything they need for pretty much the whole season. Mid-to-late season I'll pile on some more mulch to maintain about 4-6 inches in mulch thickness and keep the flow of food into the soil. No spraying for bugs involved in any of that. It actually works out to also be a lot cheaper since I have no real need to buy any fertilizers and to mulch 400 sq ft. of garden costs 16 dollars.

You may not be aware that Lumbricus rubellus is invasive and is threatening North American Forests. Quoting from: Invasive EarthwormsA Threat to North American Forests Plants & Gardens News : Volume 19, Number 1 : Spring 2004 by Niall Dunne http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/essays/2004su_worms.html "In 2002, Michael Gundale of Michigan Technological University published a report detailing how the epigeic bait and compost worm Lumbricus rubellus may be wiping out populations of the rare goblin fern, Botrychium mormo, and possibly other rare native plants too, in the Chippewa National Forest. Gundale credits the epigeic worm's destruction of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil as a reason for the goblin fern's decline. "John C. Maerz and colleagues from Cornell University have found strong evidence linking salamander decline in the hardwood forests of central New York and southeastern Pennsylvania to invasions by L. rubellus and Asian Amynthas species, among others. ..." "... With invasive earthworms wriggling amok in our forest soils, gardeners who use worms to decompose kitchen scraps and plant waste may want to take a closer look at what theyve got growing in their compost piles. Some of the traits that make worms ideal for vermicompostingsuch as high reproductive rate and adaptabilitymay also make them potentially successful invaders. "The worm predominantly sold for composting is the red wiggler or red tiger worm, Eisenia fetida. It has a rusty brown color with alternating yellow and maroon bands down the length of its body; a pigmentless membrane separates each segment. It grows up to three inches long and is highly prolific. Though the worm has established itself in the wild here, so far it has not been identified as a problem species. "Another popular compost species, the red worm, Lumbricus rubellus, is causing trouble, however, and should be avoided. It also grows up to three inches long and has a history of being confused with E. fetida. This worm is dark red to maroon, has a light yellow underside, and lacks striping between segments. "In The Earth Moved (Algonquin Books, 2004), a wonderful new book on earthworms by Amy Stewart, forest ecologist Cindy Hale advises worm composters to freeze their castings in air-tight bags for a least a week before adding them to garden soil, no matter what worms species they use. "It won't hurt the soil microbes, but it will kill all the worms."

A paint bag was designed to filter globs of paint from the rest, so bumps don't appear where you paint. I started using mesh bags like for onions, but too much of the compost was floating in the tea, which plugs up the water can. So the bag filters it nicely, and doesn't interfere with the bacteria growth. The reason people use 'teas' might be because it's another way to nourish plants effectively. We all composted to build up our soil, but to really get great results sometimes takes years, depending on how good your soil was. So now we have worm castings, and nobody can argue about their increased value over compost as a fertilizer. Through electron microscopes we now really know how plants feed, and it's through the interchange they have with bacteria. And they not only feed through the root system, but also their foliant. My view anyway.