Powdery mildew isn't like other plant diseases. It can be prevented from spreading by spraying the foliage down with plain water. PM propagules do not require free water in order to germinate, as other diseases do. Thus, we can simply keep those spores rinsed away. My advice to you is to give your plants a quick shower in the morning and use more pressure every few days to knock off a few aphids. At some point you should invest in some commercial insecticidal soap and some cold pressed neem. But I've not found the products essential to protecting plants from aphids or PM. Helpful, yes. Mastergardener, it is well documented that ants are very attracted to and will protect a population of any insect which will produce large amounts of sugary honeydew. Their defense of those insects (aphids and scale, most notably) is amply rewarded by honeydew produced in even larger amounts as incentive. Control of the aphids is usually all we need to do to discourage ants. Fortunately, the presence of ants in the garden simply means that the environment is a normal one. Some ant species require control....fire ants, for example. They can truly be harmful to plants, people, and pets. But most ant bait products are not labeled for use in the veggie garden so wr need to be careful about what we use and where.

Had bad yellow jacket infestation in a rotting fire wood pile.we didn't know it until it was to late... 23 ouches for me and 4 for my 9yr old daughter.Needless to say organic or not I gave them the gasoline and match method. The pile burnt 4 days. Dug thru and found the hive along with the dead queen... A week or so later I noticed a few buzzing around the remains... They were burrowing in and flying larvae away. I couldn't believe it... After a 4 day fire and a week later the larvie were still alive. Called in the pro's. We found out they were western yellowjackets here in the east. They are now gone. But not forgotten. Do yourself a favor and call the pro's.

Whiteflies! I'm an organic gardener in zone 7. I've been gardening for many years, but the last dozen or so I've gotten a lot more serious (and had a lot more challenges, and fun.) At the beginning of June this year, I discovered whiteflies (for the first time ever) in three distinct garden areas of our property, each area separated by a good deal of lawn (well, the yard has SOME grass, but it's mostly weeds & clover.) One area was very active with whiteflies, the other two somewhat less so, but it was clear they were dispersed throughout the property. I read and read and read and came up with this protocol, which I hope will help anyone else who runs into the same pest. First, I suspended my weekly spray of a gentle foliar feeding solution (spray n grow & bills perfect fertilizer) to slow down the plant growth that whiteflies find so appealing. Then, every evening for a full week, I sprayed every plant and shrub in my gardens with the following blend: 1 gallon Ivory soap water 1 gallon water 8 tsps take down concentrate 2 cups commercial concentrated deer repellent (primarily garlic/clove/mint/egg centric) (We live in a VERY high deer pressure area so I was already spraying my .66 acres of gardens & shrubs with a rotation of deer repellents every evening, two gallons a night.) For perspective, I used three batches of this whitefly action brew (so six gallons total) every night. The Ivory water wasn't carefully measured. I took a large bar of Ivory soap, left it in a gallon of water overnight, and used that. Then I used the same bar in successive gallons. That one bar lasted the whole time I sprayed. I sprayed the outsides of everything, of course, but also shoved the sprayer nozzle into the middle of each plant/shrub, doing my best to get to the undersides of the leaves & stems, too. Five evenings into my spraying, I noticed no more whitefly activity. Interestingly, the pollinators remained abundant, active, & happy throughout the entire spray period. This may be because it was relatively early in the season. This may also be because I sprayed in the evening, after most of pollinators had gone to sleep. And lastly, this may be because I used the mildest but still effective takedown solution -- just 1%. (And maybe all the clover in the yard helped too, by giving them a consistent alternative food source.) After the week of whitefly brew spraying ended, I did nothing (other than my nightly rotation of deer repellent spraying) for about 10 days. I still saw no evidence of whiteflies. Then I released beneficial insects: Ladybugs, which start eating right away; Lacewing eggs, which take a few days to a week to hatch & start eating; And, praying mantis eggs, which take weeks to hatch & start eating. I purchased enough beneficials to populate our entire yard and followed the directions for timing, conditions, etc for their release. A couple of notes: I opted not to use neem oil on the property because I had previously used it and it does not like begonias, bleeding hearts, fuscia and other somewhat delicate plants, all of which were liberally interspersed amidst my perennial beds and containers. I was VERY reluctant about using the takedown given my love of pollinators but I realized I had to make a tough call and decided the best course was to save my garden for the pollinators who would come by later in the season. I truly didn't expect so little impact on them during my spray period. I was very relieved to see them thriving the entire time! In addition, everything I read suggested it was best to use multiple beneficial insects so I opted to include praying mantis in the mix, despite the risk to some pollinators, concluding, again, that saving my garden overall was the better course. I also bought a bug blaster nozzle (Amazon has it) and a watering wand. The bug blaster delivers a 360 degree forceful spray of water. I'm not going to use it now, but it's here for next time. I want to see if alternating washing the plants during the day and spraying the plants in the evening will let me solve the problem using even less takedown. Stopping whiteflies takes real diligence, but it's doable! Good luck!

Hi - we managed to get rid of knotweed completely - will tell you how I did it. I'm here because of a BBC article and got me remembering and thinking. I don't understand why everyone says this is so difficult to get rid of it seemed really easy to me anyway. 4 years ago we bought a flat - it had knotweed noted on the survey, it was pretty big area of huge tall weeds, but we haggled the price and bought for cash. Told we wouldn't get a mortgage because of the knotweed. Neighbours told us it was a nightmare they had battled for years and told us all the stories of council officials coming out to look at it and trying to apply for grant funding etc etc to get it dug out with JCB's and burned. Anyway, we decided ourselves to get an estimate from a professional company - priced in the £000's. I did some reading and research about the plant and controlling it. Went to b and q and bought a large quantity of the strongest glyphosate I could find, it said it could treat like 500m/sq. this patch was maybe 20 metres by 5 metres - pretty big for me anyway. It was supposed to be pretty diluted but I only used about 10% water maybe. I also bought a £15 manual spray pump and some gloves and some sponges. I went with some ladders on a Saturday morning in August, it was about 15 degrees C, cloud cover and dry. i coated every single leaf I could with the stuff - several times during the day and again after it dried off or was absorbed. I then found all the thickest stems and bunches and cut them down about halfway, and poured the stuff into the stems - filled right to the top. Then topped them off later that evening - and used the last of the strong spray solution I had made for another final spray coating. Over the next few weeks they starting visibly dying. The winter came and went and by July the following year everything was completely dead. I took plenty of before, during and after photos which I still have. That was 4 years ago I did that and not one single sign of it has returned. It cost me like £80 of materials and maybe 12 hours of my time. I knew nothing whatsoever about Japanese knotweed or plants and gardening and still don't. I was later told that national rail and the local council had actually sent 'a man' every season for 'several years' previous to our buying the place to 'spray the plants' to try and get rid of them. With little success apparently. What I find totally and utterly bizarre is that someone like me, completely clueless about horticulture and plants, was able to completely kill - permanently - a pretty substantial bank of this stuff in like 1 day, with stuff bought from the local hardware shop - and yet the Internet is full of stories and news reports of people spending fortunes and despairing in heartache over it. Was I lucky somehow? Genuinely I've always been curious about this and would welcome input from those more experienced.