To do (kill) what?

Begin with good gardening practices and monitoring your plants so that potential problems don't get out of hand.

Then handpick as needed.

Include a harsh spray of water, as needed.

Also insecticidal soap against soft-bodied insects.

Anything that is marketed as a pesticide has some degree of toxicity - that is what pesticide means: 'a substance or agent used to kill pests, such as unwanted or harmful insects, rodents, or weeds.' Toxicity = kill.

Toxicity is all in the dosage. Even something as innocuous as salt can become toxic if used to excess. The only completely "safe" products are water or hand picking. Insecticidal soap can create phytotoxic effects if used incorrectly or on sensitive plant material.

What exactly about neem oil do you find to be toxic? You do know that this product is widely used in any number of skin care products as well as cosmetics, toothpaste, soaps and shampoos.

I, too, wonder about your issue with Neem.

• Adoption of best horticultural practices
• Fostering a healthy soil
• Regular and routine observation of the garden
• Learning to correctly identify the numerous visitors to the garden
• Hand removal of known pests and their eggs
• Avoidance of all insect and disease prone varieties

All of the above should be on every gardeners list. But so, too, should be the thoughtful and careful use of products that have long been proven to be safe, when used properly. Neem is one of those.

"What exactly about neem oil do you find to be toxic?" "I, too, wonder about your issue with Neem."

It really doesn't hurt to be cautious of anything designed to kill. After all, Bayer sells Neem oil yet they marketed Heroin to mothers, DDT was once considered to be good, Lysol was marketed as a douche, and real organic root beer contained a now-banned carcinogen. Ridiculous yes, but I'm saying it's prudent to have a strong distrust of the manufacturers no matter what they say.

There's no harm in being safe rather than sorry, even if you go a little too far out of the comfort range of others.

No one has suggested that he/she shouldn't be cautious.

I've been told the natural pesticides are toxic to water and my plants didn't like the neem oil much. It was fine for a couple applications but just felt like plants were not as healthy. My friend just gave me bottle of All Plant Wash which seems to be made of organic non-toxic plant extracts etc to help build the plant nutrition so will see if my plants can get back on track... right now dealing with mites, aphids, white flies... Anyone got any good ideas regarding caterpillars? They seem to like my kale.

For caterpillars row covers will prevent the adult butterflies/moths laying the eggs in the first place.

When do you put row covers on? I check my garden daily and in 1 day my kale had a bunch of caterpillars on it. I did remove them but they had destroyed some kale.. Snails are starting to be a problem.

the nutrient wash All Plant Wash is actually doing great after 2 days. My kale is recovering great. My soy beans which was not producing pods just started forming pods... Thought I wasn't going to produce since so late during the season... So excited!!!

'in 1 day my kale had a bunch of caterpillars on it.' The eggs would have been there for some days prior to the caterpillars. They don't spontaneously generate out of the air. One of the most important things in organics is close observation, including under leaves.

Row covers can go on leafy veg as soon as the plants are planted because there is no requirement to leave access for pollinators. However, snails love any cover which is bunched and touching the soil. They'll hide in there.

S. I did notice the eggs after I noticed 2 butterflies hanging out and sprayed the leaves and underside down with water. Also removed eggs from soil. Obviously didn't get all of it. I did limit damage. Would have had a ton of caterpillars but limited the caterpillars to just 5-6 that came out. Any thoughts on how to tackle the snails with the row cover?

No - row cover will do nothing against snails.

What kind of eggs did you find in the soil?

Green eggs that became caterpillars. Had also some black eggs on my artichoke plants that I sprayed with heavy water and wouldn't come off. It didn't look like mites. Maybe aphid but not... I didn't wait to see what was going to come out of those so sprayed the nutrient wash for 2 days and now plant is booming again. I wanted to make sure the essential oil All Plant Wash was safe to use. Took a gamble since the artichoke plants were completed invaded by these black eggs. Thought I would lose the plant. The eggs are gone after 2 days. Seemed to have done the trick. Didn't want this wash to kill my plant. Plant seemed to love the product and got rid of the eggs. So happy. The caterpillar green eggs were impossible. Had to physically remove the eggs and caterpillar. Now snails seems to want to build a highway towards the rest of my garden...

Also I did try food grade soap concoction which didn't work great in this incident. Usually it does the trick.

Some close up pictures would really help here as we are just guessing what the problems are.

Toxicity is a measure of how detrimental a substance is to something. All pesticides are toxic to the wee critters they are meant to control and may be, in varying degrees toxic to animals and humans as well. Since Insecticidal Soaps do kill some insects they are toxic to those insects. Pyrethrins are toxic to more insects a broader spectrum of them and includes many beneficial insects.

Toxicity is relative and the dose that kills an insect may not do much harm to a human while others have been found to be toxic to humans in fairly small doses. Many of the substances we use today are being found in our drinking water, Nitrates, from high Nitrogen fertilizers, in our drinking water is one of many and some believe those come from "farms" while many homeowners contribute by applying to much fertilizer.

Neem is toxic to some insects but is not, in normal amounts used, toxic to humans and has been used in India for centuries by humans for many things including tooth cleaning.

A basic premise of organic growing is that plants growing in a good healthy soil will be less susceptible to attack and harm from insect pests and plant diseases so the soil plants are growing in is the most important part of the garden to an organic grower. Then an organic grower may take actions that limit the need for using pesticides, using plant protectors (Floating Row Covers, inter cropping, etc.), not growing plants that are very susceptible to insect pest attack.

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