utdeedee, This technique is called Companion Planting. It's not so much getting rid of pests, but deterring them. And also to attract beneficial insects that eat the pests we do not want. You can also look up Intercropping , here is a good place to start: Intercropping Principles and Production Practices. There is also an entire forum here at GW devoted to the topic: GardenWeb Companion Plants Forum Here is a link that might be useful: Lengthy List of Companion Plants

Hello Diana....I have around 50 potted Angel Trumpets in a spare room of my house, last week I noticed aphids on about half of them...I searched on Googel for a cure, many different opinions on how to cure these little things....I used 1 tspn of dawn dish liquid in a qt bottle sprayer, I tryed this, but it didn't seem to effect them...So I added just a tiny bit more dawn, sprayed again and it killed all of them....There was no effect on the leaves....You may want to wait on other opinions here before you try this, I don't know what effect this will have on banana leaves....Merry Xmas, SNC299

With the mustard solution, worms come to the surface within 15 minutes. If they don't, wait a while and try it again another day. By worms "disappearing" it means they will die and decompose. In your garden it shouldn't be a problem. But if your dead worm concentration is too high, they will make a slimy mess in the pot. If you can repot, that's what I would do. I think that should take care of most of the problem. You can always get more red worms if you want to start composting. There is a lot of stuff online about worm composting. It's easy but you do have to keep at it or the worms will die. Dryness and high or low pH are the enemy of worms. But I don't know the ideal conditions for growing lemons, you wouldn't want to hurt your tree trying to get rid of the worms. Repotting seems like the easiest thing to do, or try the mustard treatment or an electrical probe, which I had never heard of! Cooperative Extension may be able to recommend a less toxic chemical treatment, one that breaks down easily. Pyrethrum is a good insecticide in that respect, but as I copied above, apparently it doesn't kill worms. Of course that is a GOOD thing if you are using it in your garden!

The blossom drop started about 6-8 weeks ago, when the days were quite long. Prior to their arrival, I had very bountiful plants. Since their arrival: just about nothing. This includes both the plants I planted at the beginning of the season and plants that were planted about 2 months ago. Further damning evidence: I have a tomato plant in the front that barely has any of them on it, and it's pumping out a ton of tomatoes. The plants are both in beds and containers. Automated drip line in the beds. I stopped fertilizing when I believed they were aphids. The flowers don't drop, they appear dried out. And these bugs are always on the stem immediately below where the flowers are. They tend to just roam around, always below where the flowers are. They're never on sucker branches. I have sprayed both neem oil and insecticidal soap directly on them and watched them walk around for minutes afterwards. Basically, tomato production just abruptly stopped right around the same time the population of these bugs jumped up. The plants have been growing in size and are thriving. I had one that had a 33' diameter (my wife ended up pulling it since it wasn't producing but was getting so big). Here's what it looked like before their overrunning the plants: I was getting this weekly: And this was a week or two ago, before my wife pulled up the two biggest ones (there are only 4 tomato plants in the beds in this photo, three in the middle bed and one in a back bed you can't really see): The plants seem healthy in every single way, except that most of the flowers shrivel up before fruiting. Most drop before they even blossom. But some make it through and flower and I'm getting 1-6 tomatoes a week.