Unfortunately, there is very little preventitive action you can take with insect problems, other than avoiding chemical pesticides and planting with biodiversity in mind. I would encourage the making and use of compost - it is one of the best things you can do for a garden and the soil organisms it encourages will go a long way to offset the bad guys that may lay eggs in the soil that grow up to cause problems.

Organic gardening is a bit of a process - it takes time to get the environment back to a healthy balance after the use of chemicals. And insects DO happen - climate changes, the gardening practices of your neighbors, even just the cyclical life cycles of various insect pests will affect your garden from time to time. Practice good sanitation, avoid the chemicals (even organic remedies like Neem can harm beneficials) and don't over-fertilize. Continue to attract birds and other wildlife - birds are the best pest control methods invented :-) I'd plant a cover crop (green manure) that can overwinter and be worked into the soil in the spring to enrich it. Start composting - contrary to what you may think, it doesn't attract or encourage slugs - and mulch with it next season. And if slugs ARE a problem, use an eco-friendly bait like beer traps or iron phosphate. They are more likely to lay eggs and overwinter under a thick layer of leaves than they are to be present with a good compost.

Good luck!

Gardengal, this is incredibly helpful information. Thank you so very much.

Can you suggest good cover crops? I live in Zone 6, near St. Louis. We generally have fairly mild winters. Most of the time we're lucky to get 3-4 inches of snow total for the year. And it almost always melts within a day.

Also, would I just till this cover crop in come spring?

I've been making compost for more than a decade here in our yard, and I have yet to see an insect problem that could be attributed to the compost pile. That said, we do have insects in the garden every growing season, to some extent. In past years, squash vine borers have decimated our squash plants, but this year, for some reason, they are absent, so it looks like we will get a good yield. There were a few japanese beetles in the raspberry patch, but not enough to cause alarm. I did see some insect damage to the broccoli, and often see the yellow butterflies around the garden, so I guess its not too surprising. On the other hand, our tomatos are healthy, and free of blight, so this is turning out to be a good year for tomatos. We have a slow compost pile, mostly browns. I dig it out in the spring, and work some of the compost into the garden at that time. After 10 years of adding compost, the garden soil is much easier to work than soil in other parts of the yard, which tends to be high in clay. I don't know what kinds of vegetables and other plants will thrive in your particular environment. Trial and error is part of the process. I'm glad to hear that your peppers and eggplant did well.

I'm not sure what cover crops would be best for your area - you might want to check with your local extension office for their suggestions. Here, various legumes or nitrogen fixers are used - fava beans, annual ryegrass, crimson clover, hairy vetch, etc. Planted in fall after harvest, they germinate rapidly and fill the beds during winter and are turned under or lightly tilled into the soil several weeks to a month before planting in spring.

Re: the race horse manure == I'd use caution with that. Who knows what they feed those horses e.g. antibiotics, steroids, etc. I'd be concerned about their poop containing nasty stuff. I'd suggest sticking with the known - neighbors' rabbit poop.

ericwi, back in the 80s I moved to extreme southern Illinois. I'm from central Illinois originally, and the land there is good farmland. That's what I grew up with. But down south, that ground was so clayish that it was like trying to work with playdough. I didn't think it could be gardened, but I didn't know back then about composting. (On the farm, I guess we had a compost pile that we called the crap pile out by the barn, but we never thought to use it...such a shame)

Anyway, I got a bunch of four by fours, stacked them, made a frame, then filled it with a mix of potting soil and cheap topsoil. All hauled in my little Toyota from Carter Lumber, which was 20 miles away....a load at a time. LOL. (We had no Lowes or Wal Marts back then)

It worked fantastic, and after I'd built it, my mom said "That was the craziest idea I'd ever heard of, but it worked. Good for you." She had a habit of never telling me my ideas were crazy until they were done and I'd succeeded.

Years later, I learned that it was a raised garden, only I thought I invented it myself. ROFL. (No internet back then, and I never read a book on gardening)

Anyway, when I hear of clay soil, I think back to my wonderful raised garden. It was a lot of work in the beginning, but I had a beautiful veg. garden when I was done. And never had bugs out there other than ticks. (I literally lived on the edge of a national forest...my backyard started the forest)

You have all the problems brought about by chemicals. Once you get totally converted to organic materials, things should clear up for you.

If you have horse manure, then you have greens. Save your leaves in a pile or in bags for when you bring in the manure. I collect horse manure in 13-gallon trash bags. I put the bag into a 5-gallon bucket, fill the bucket 2/3 full, and tie off the bag. Fill it more and you're carrying a load that tests the strength of the bag. Then dump the bags into your compost pile with the leaves as a cover to filter and capture the smell. Compost is finished cooking when it smells incredibly good. If it smells like a forest floor after a rainstorm, then it's finished. If it smells moldy, dank, yeasty, sour, or anything that is not fresh as a daisy, it is not finished and should cook longer.

Scatter compost on your soil lightly. You don't need much at all. If you can still see the soil through the compost, you probably are using plenty. Seriously a light dusting is all you need.

Organic fertilizers are made from ground grains like corn, wheat, soy, cottonseed, and alfalfa. You can get those raw ingredients from a feed store for 1/6 the cost of the bagged fertilizer. Apply any one or a mix at 1-2 pounds per 100 square feet. For veggies you can apply monthly. Start now and do it all winter. If you do this, you won't need to, "till in sevin." The grains feed the natural beneficial microbes and they will take care of any disease or problem bugs living in the soil. This gets complicated but for now you should just trust (or hope) it works. It does.

Sucking insects are usually well controlled by spraying liquid seaweed diluted 3 ounces per gallon as a foliar spray, every 2 weeks. People spraying milk at the same rate seem to have similar results.

If you are going to till I probably can't stop you unless I figure out a way to reach through the screen and choke you. You might search this forum and the rest of the Internet for no-till discussions. You'll save yourself a TON of work and have healthier soil for it. Plant your cover crop and just mow it instead of tilling. This leaves the roots and all the microbes intact for your next crop.

If you don't have enough birds, you can put up a bird house, bird bath, and bird feeder. Birds will come if you throw out corn meal or alfalfa pellets. While they are there they will find all the insects moving around.

Don't pull everything up. Mow it down and use the tops as a green mulch.

Do this and you can spend the winter learning why all this works. You're planning to read books, huh. I'm not sure there are any good books on organic gardening. There has been a revolution in organic thinking since the mid 1990s. What has changed is the advent and popularity of DNA analysis. DNA testing has become inexpensive enough that they can check dirt with it. What they have found is the number of soil microbe species is NOT in the tens, but it is in the hundreds of thousands. Scientists know nearly nothing of all these species so they were set back to square one on organic thinking. A lot has been done but not much has filtered itself into practical books for the home gardener. What they seem to agree on is that the microbes in the soil have been feeding for billions of years on the wastes and dead bodies of creatures and plants from above and from their own wastes dead bodies underground. What this means is they need protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes - just like we do. So if you feed them the ground grains I outlined above, you will be miles (and Miles and MILES) ahead of anyone still just using compost and thinking that's all they need.

This is a great post, dchall. I'd like to respond to a few points and get your thoughts.

You said my problems are brought about by chemicals, but I'm not so sure. I only moved into this house two years ago, and this is my second summer with gardening the land. The lawn is a mess, which indicates it's been a long time since anyone used any kind of chemicals on it. The spot where I made the vegetable garden was virgin, although I did recently find out there used to be a large tree in the area that was dug out.

I had it tilled fresh last spring, then planted. The only problems I had were birds (more on that in a minute) and the flea beetles. I did use one spray of Sevin on those beetles, and that took care of them. And it was a very light spray, but a spray nonetheless. (I'm learning, I'm learning!) If there were any other bugs, I never saw them, and I've always had the practice of walking through nearly every day looking for damage or problems. That's something my grandfather taught me.

The birds, I didn't mention because I got a handle on them. Having always lived way out in the country/forest, I let my dogs and cats outside. So I've never known birds. (Other than bluejays...they were always around and very aggressive) Then I moved to town and now my pets aren't allowed outdoors. So I'm enjoying birds for the first time in my life.

However, I have robins that sheared off my seedlings (the guy at the nursery said they do it to get nesting materials), but the other birds don't really bother my garden. I have a LOT of blackbirds, sparrows and grackles that I do not feed. And I feed my cardinal family, goldfinches and many, many hummingbirds. I also do a lot of flowers and flowering bushes and have never used a pesticide on flowers. (Never had to)

Last year I strung a foil jungle throughout my garden to keep the birds (robins) out. This year i used vinyl netting, but next year I'll go back to the foil...it's easier in the long run.

The point of that long ramble is that I have so many birds. Maybe they ate bugs, I don't know. And the other thing is that the only chemical used was last year's spray of Sevin (and that was only on a few eggplants, nothing else). Now, my neighbor does some flowers, and she might use pesticides.

I did plant a lot of sunflowers, too. Partly just because I love them, but also did some in the veg. garden as companion plants for the cucumbers. (I don't think it worked, but I did get a nice crop of aphids on the sunflowers. I also got nice goldfinches which I've enjoyed)

I need to back up...I did use chemical fertilizer (Miracle Grow), and some powdered coyote urine because I have a lot of wild rabbits. I'm only now learning about compost tea.

Next point...I've decided NOT to use the horse manure, because these are all fancy racehorses (I live near a big racetrack) and Terri mentioned that they probably use steroids and things. So I'll have to settle for the poo of my neighbor's two pet rabbits.

Back to the birds, I really considered getting a bat house, but I'm not sure it's legal in town. Plus would probably freak my neighbors all out. We have rabid bats sometimes. But I'd love to have some bats. (And even more, bat poop...it's supposed to be the best) But not a good idea around here.

I'm very interested in the liquid seaweed you spray, or the milk. I've seen Paul James talk about using milk to control fungus as well. Would leafhoppers be considered sucking insects? I'm having trouble finding anything to use next year that takes care of them, and they did an enormous amount of damage to things this year. Neem oil is supposed to work, but to work, I would have had to sprayed my entire garden, including ground, with the Neem oil, and I was afraid it would harm too many beneficials.

What are your thoughts on nematodes and releasing beneficials (mainly ladybugs)?

Now to the tilling. Would you believe that last fall I did the no-till thing? My friend read about it somewhere, and I was all for it because I don't own a tiller and have to pay someone to come till. I already used newspapers as kind of a mulch to keep the weeds down, so I pulled everything up, put down layers of newspapers, topped it with a lot of leaves from the yard, then composted manure (that I bought at Wal Mart), then more leaves.

What I did like about that is that I didn't have to really work the soil in the spring, or at least not like when you let it grow wild, and I had zero weeds. But it didn't decompose as much as i expected, and I kind of had a crispy crust I had to break through, then would come to a layer of undecomposed leaves. The crust was very much like the crust on a creme brulee, only made of crispy newspapers.

I don't know if that's how it was supposed to be or not. Then I just kind of dug my rows out with a shovel and hand shovel, worked some composted manure into my rows, and planted.

I've somewhat blamed my bug problem on that...is my logic wrong? My logic is that I sealed in all these bug eggs that might have been exposed and killed if I'd had tilled.

I'm not opposed to not tilling, because I think the layered thing was easier than tilling, especially since I don't have a tiller and would have to borrow/rent one. I understand the logic of the anti till movement, and disturbing the soil and such, but maybe i want to disturb the bug eggs.

And then there was the crispy crust....should I have just pulled all that up and tossed it? I didn't really know what to do in the spring. It was not what I expected. I expected a soil I could dig in, add some compost, work it in, then plant. But I had that crust and then a layer of leaves. (I used leaves because the instructions said either leaves or grass cuttings, and I have no grass cuttings in the fall because my lawn is not so good.)

The books I was planning on getting:

The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals by Barbara Ellis

and

Great Garden Companions: A Companion-Planting System for a Beautiful, Chemical-Free Vegetable Garden by Sally Jean Cunningham

The crust was very much like the crust on a creme brulee

I try to get a crust more like the crust on top of Jello pudding or a nice brie. What the heck is creme brulee?????

I would not pull the plants out because you are removing some great organic matter, the roots. Just mow the tops off (like Mother Nature's livestock do) and leave them in place as a mulch (sort of like Mother Nature's livestock do). If you can get leaves, mulch with them, just like Mother Nature does every autumn.

Bat houses are a good idea but do bats ever come to them? I thought bats lives in colonies, not little houses. And I know they like their day time temps to be cool.

I like beneficial nematodes for fleas and ticks. I do not buy other insects because I don't have many pests. My sucking insect pests went away when I started the organic program.

I wouldn't worry about race horse manure. The largest compost company in town absolutely relies on race horse manure. In fact his facility is adjacent to the race track.

A creme brulee (if there's a Frenchman here, we'll get chewed out for not having the accent mark on the last e) is a fancy, expensive desert that is absolutely delicious. All it is is a custard with a layer of sugar on top. But they take a mini food welder and burn that sugar so it's a crispy crust. I've tried to make them, but so far haven't been very successful. (You can broil them in the oven for that crispy top if you don't have the welder.)

I still don't know if my no-til method turned out right. I expected something else, like nice, crumbly soil. Instead I got a bunch of leaves and crunchy newspapers.

I have no shortage of leaves, which is the real reason I started thinking of composting. I spend so much time raking, and then bagging, and it seemed like it would be easier to rake the leaves into a compost bin. Then I started learning all the benefits of composting and it sounded wonderful, not to mention the fact I wouldn't have to haul bags of compost from the store. I've just been trying to figure out what kind of thing to build, plus where to put it. Would it be a bad idea to put it next to my trash cans? In really hot weather I get some flies.

I used a bale of straw as mulch this year, and probably would again. I loved how it worked, and the smell did me in. (Good way) Once I started tearing the bale apart, the inside straw just had the most wonderful, earthy smell. I spend half of my time outside sniffing roots and dirt...and now straw. It's my addiction.

On the bat houses, I dunno. I've seen some shows on using them, and they sell them at my wildbird store, so I guess they like them. They say once you get a bat colony in one, they'll never leave.

But everybody is so afraid of bats. i think they're oddly cute.

You know it's strange, with my big trees, I've never had a tick since moving here. When I lived in the forest, it was an ongoing problem for myself and my pets. Now I have mosquitoes and they love me. I'd like to find the source of where they breed and fix that, but I've been unsuccessful. So I have to use repellents.

Do you think steroids and such break down? I'm going to try and ask this one farm I know of where they have a bunch of Clydesdales (I think as pets) if they'd share their manure. Plus it will hopefully give me a chance to see those horses closeup and maybe pet them. They're so gorgeous. I appreciate your tip on how to collect that...I would have just started filling garbage bags full.

A great post, Julianna, leading to a great thread.

Bear that in mind, because that is what your gardening practices will do as well. Organic gardening is based on ecological processes, and ecology is the never-ending contrast of balance and change. One year you have a lot of bugs. It may well be a result of pesticide use, because the "good" bugs that were keeping the "bad" bugs at bay, by preying on them, are MORE susceptible to pesticides(the chemicals accumulate in their tissues at a higher concentration then in the target bugs, because they're eating the target bugs. Same with the birds. This was the lesson we learned from the ospreys and eagles and Rachel Carson.) You do a soil test, and find out you need more A and less G, so you buy F and D2.0 and till that in and next year your Q is all weird. This is the lesson of compost, that by adding a consistent product that increases humus, neuteralizes pH, and offers some consistency to the ecological processes of your plot, the "good" bugs will be able to thrive and gain the upper hand. I've visited some organic gardens all over the north east, and invariably those that have persisted with good organic methods have had the most success in, generally, beating most of the problems that arise. On the other hand, there is never 100% success, in part because of circumstances beyond anyone's control, particularly climatological ones. The third lesson is found here, that diversity is the key. I've had some years when my green lettuce was devastated by slugs and the red lettuce went unmolested. There have been springs when my spinach bolted long before I could sell it all but I had beautiful basi for 5 months solid, at the height of the market. Grow a little bit of a lot of things, and over time you will find what works best for you, and by doing a lot of things, something will always succeed. And therein is the last lesson, obvious from thousands of years of agriculture but almost impossible to learn when the flea beetles are devouring your arugula - patience and optimism. It's what's fed us for centuries.

Best of luck, and thanks for getting this really useful thread started.

No matter how expert the gardener, we all have years when nothing works. I have resorted to keeping the major portion of my veggie beds covered with the lightweight remay which helps a lot. BT for the yucky tomato worms and cabbage loopers Fall clean helps tremendously. I pull all plant residue, burn it in a separate burning barrel, then put that into the compost bin. I till the soil several times over the fall, exposing any nasties to birds etc. It seems to help. Check out You Bet Your Garden on Saturdays on public radio. Lots of hints there. Mike Mcgrath always has interesting things to try and general info.

What about planting beneficial-attracting plants in a few spots in/around the garden to enhance/encourage your beneficial insect population??? Small flowered plants. Queens Anns Lace, nasturtium, marigolds, dill. Maybe even let some carrots go to seed.

Link below is to a google search with lots of plants good for attracting beneficials.

Ed

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Search for

Puzzlefan, how often do you retill the soil? At this point, I'm considering either putting down black plastic to burn everybody up (I hope anyway), OR planting a cover crop. I plan to talk to the garden expert at our county extension office and see if s/he has any recommendations for our area on either procedure. The cover crop I'm thinking of: hairy vetch, or maybe crimson clover. I know nothing about either crop, just that they seem to attract beneficials and grow in winter? Not sure.

I do like the idea of exposing all the underneath stuff for the birds (and I have no shortage of birds). Last year I did the lasagne no-till thing, and I blamed (perhaps wrongly) that for some of my bug invasion. It may have just been coincidence.

Dirt Tracker, I'm definitely planning on trying companion planting next spring. I've always done marigolds, just because my grandmother always told me to, but I've been seeing on the shows that you need to make sure they're heavily scented. When I buy them at the stores, they don't seem to have much smell. So next year, I intend to buy a couple of packets of seeds and make sure I get smelly ones.

I'm wanting to get a book on companion planting and really study it. I had seen on a show that sunflowers were good companions for cukes, so I did that (the sunflower got aphids, but did invite a pretty goldfinch) and basil for tomatoes. The tomatoes are about dead now, but the basil lives on. I need to consider the others you mentioned.

Do you know much about Queen Anne's Lace? It grows wild here and is considered a weed, but I've always loved it. Can you buy seeds? Otherwise, I'll have to wait til next summer to go driving and digging. It grows with wild chicory, which is my FAVORITE. Every year I want to dig some of both up and plant, but my uncle (the farmer) freaks out and says they're "noxious weeds."

He's never mentioned my running bamboo....LOL. And it's spreading, but I'm so in love with bamboo. All those bugs and the bamboo didn't have a blemish. It's a trooper.

Just as Gardengal suggested once your soil is back in balance your problems will be diminished, since insect pests are attracted more to plants under stress for some reason than strong, healthy plants. Start your preparations for next year now by contacting your counties office of the University of Illinois USDA Cooperative Extension Service about a soil test that will give you a good idea of base nutrient and soil pH levels and then dig in with these simple tests (which every gardener should do periodically and many do without thinking about it) which will let you see what your soil is:
1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer you soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.

Here is a link that might be useful: UI CRES