DONT USE SOAP. Soap contains a lot of stuff that is very harmful to plants and the chemical contents can vary considerably. I have given several plants bad burns by using soap. By far and away the best insect control is the organic Neem Oil. There are variety of commercial brands available. Once every 2 months is usually sufficient. Make sure you follow the dilution guidelines. If you use a sprayer, wash with a soap(!)solution every 3 or 4 applications to prevent the oil clogging the jets.

Thrips invaded my house in Pennsylvania the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It's now January 15th and I've finally had 2 days free of them. I use peppermint essential oil to keep them off me. Off and deet are useless. The ones I killed have been identified as idolothripinae. Native to the Philippines and SE Asia. We buy things from wal mart or online that comes from China, well now their Thrips and Mites are here. And they are very aggressive. I own no plants and it's taken me all of 6 weeks to get to this point. They disappeared for a week or so around Christmas but that is when the Mites, spider and bird were most prevalent. I know that it was warm after Thanksgiving and had a wood stove going to get the chill out of the air. Well it got a little too hot and I stupidly turned on an AC unit. Just for a few mins I thought. I vividly remember seeing what looked like a whisp of smoke float by as I watched football. I smoke, but looked at my ashtray and thought, that's weird, I put that out ten minutes ago. That "whisp" was their eggs. By morning it was already too late. Within a week they had gotten into everything and were crawling "all" over me. Biting, trying to get into my eyes. The mites came about a week later. Craziest thing I've ever experienced. I having no plant knowledge had to find answers and fast as everything on the Internet said they were harmless, and did not bite. Lol. Not only did they bite, 3 eventually got into my eyes. I would have to deal with at least 50 a day trying. They would also spray eggs as they fly by. More than once I'd look down only to see their eggs and fluid across my shirt. They also are very vindictive. Once a couple weeks back after they resurfaced the 2nd time I found they had made a huge nest in a small crevice between cabinets. I sprayed them and killed them with a sulfur h202 and vinegar mixture (figured that one out. Kills them and their eggs all in one.). That night I was about to fall asleep, and thought I saw the whisps. I drifted in and out of sleep. I suddenly felt an urge to get up. I started to sit up and noticed a small batch of eggs just to the left of me on my comforter. When. I sat up completely to my shock they had laid eggs all around my head. On the pillow and comforter. They are some real sons a B's. But now I am adept at handling them, and getting them out of my clothes, since they would nest in my dryers door gasket. Also the were in my vehicle and would hatch when I turned the heater on. Even worse is they would hatch from what looked like perfectly clean clothing I just took out of the dryer while I was at work. Adding some sulfur powder to the laundry fixed that. The car is being helped as we speak with a cold spell we are getting here. Temp has been below freezing for 2 days. 3 or more should wipe them out. So I turned the heat on full blast on the way to work, so that they hatch only to be stuck in freezing temps for 10 hrs while I work. It's been quite the ordeal. But I've learned the internet hides what these things have evolved to. Not to mention the article in 2020 talking of how the military has started using them for farming purposes to inject plants with whatever. Basically story goes they could stop a plague of locusts by unleashing them and other aphids ahead of the locusts, as they eat the crops they are injecting a chemical to stop the locust and whala no plague. The reality is it's a kick ass bio weapon. At any rate if anyone ends up in a situation like mine, here is what I've learned. H202 kills their eggs. Vinegar kills the insect. Combining the peroxide and vinegar creates paracitic acid. Be careful, it will burn some if left on skin. But it really decimates them. Then using wettable sulfur will kill adults as well as repel if sprayed about your home or yard. Peppermint oil alone is the best repellant if they are aggressive and biting. Air diffusers that you can use essential oils with also help keep them at bay but they won't keep them away if they are hellbent. They killed themselves killing my 1st diffuser. Then the ones that didn't die laid eggs all over the interior of the thing. Was pissed but admired their resolve. At any rate hope this helps someone. Lord knows how desperate I was when this became my life for the last several weeks. I pray this last bout was the end of it. I am moving from this place in a few weeks. But they say it only takes 1 female which can lay 10000 eggs, and the party starts all over again. Good luck.

Are your plants in ground or potted? I don't blame you for being concerned about chemicals. Why would you put chemicals on plants you intend to eat (or eat the fruit of?) At least produce at the store was (supposedly) treated with appropriate substances at a controlled rate with the appropriate equipment at the appropriate time. Just because you're allowed to buy it, doesn't mean it's safe, just that it's not known to be UNsafe. Not a standard with which I'm comfortable. I don't put anything from a package on plants in my yard, especially edibles. That would defeat the purpose of growing at home to have some free of chemicals, and to not have any of that kind of thing on our property at all. Native wildlife such as hummingbirds, other birds, butterflies, toads, anoles, honey bees, and so many others that are attracted to landscape plants can be harmed by so many of these supposedly 'low toxicity' chemicals. A sad irony is that chemicals that kill a particular pest are also likely harmful to predators of that pest, possibly exacerbating the problem since one individual predator can eliminate exponentially many more individual pests. For beneficials to show up, there must first be some pests. Basil seeds are usually $1 or less if you'd like to start a new crop. Trimming the tips off could do wonders for a thrip problem. Not that familiar with them in particular, but pests tend to congregate on tender new growth. You could take cuttings, vigorously rinse them, plant in a different part of the yard. Basil takes root easily, within days. A lot of fun to play with! Tender new growth is what tastes best anyway. The more you trim them, the more of that they will grow. Once plants lignify, I think the flavor suffers, but many more plants and yummy meals are needed for personal investigation... over the next (hopefully) 30-40 years! There is so much said about basil out there, much of it conflicting. Understandable since I don't have a consensus among myself yet after all these years, though never experienced the luxury of living in a frost-free place. Good article, Kim. Hosing plants down is what I do when I think plants need help with a pest problem but for plants in the ground, I don't usually do anything unless nature isn't responding quickly enough, the plant is in danger (not just under attack.) A few occasional pests won't cause permanent damage to a mature landscape plant. Good luck with your baby, and plants!

Sandy, There is a commercial organic product called ÂFungus Pharm that uses soybean oil as the active ingredient. IÂve not used it, but have made a similar spray solution to treat my Flori, HTs, Austins since mid June. I like what I see so far. Black Cherry has been spotless, and so is the florist rose Monica. Othe HTs such as Peace improves, although still spotty. Molineux and Jude are also clean. No foliage burn in 90F+ temp. Still I will need more time to observe them as the air is very humid, and we only get little rain (drought!). From what I read in horticulture articles, soybean oil is more effective to control blackspot than other horticulture oils, so I wanted to give it a try. The advantage of using the commercial product is that it has long shelved life and is convenient. But if you want to try and like to mix your own, I can post my formula. I also like to experiment with systemic biocontrol using beneficial fungi, maybe sometimes next year. The bulk of my rose garden will still be carefree and disease resistant roses, although itÂs nice to grow few HTs for cut flowers, or expanding my Tea roses collection. Here is a link that might be useful: Fungus Pharm