hi sharon, thats great to hear your organic efforts are going well. organic gardening isnt new at all in fact it really is the old way of gardening before companies started making all those fancy synthetic treatments and fertilisers available. Your leaf eating worms sound like caterpillars, or loopers, and the black bugs eating the new tips are most likely aphids. If there are only a few caterpillars you can just pick them off. aphids can also be knocked off with a jet spray from the hose (just cradle the area in your other hand while you do so the plant doesnt flail about). mzounubi, you may get different pests where you are but I find with citrus its the aphids, scale and the fruit fly that are just attracted to them like a magnet. to control the scale and aphids you can use an organic pest oil which will suffocate them and with my citrus I do sometimes resort to this because they can be such a problem with citrus trees, to protect mine from fruit fly I use calico bags and once the fruit starts forming I bag the clusters of fruit and it has worked 100% for me at keeping the fruit fly out. For 100 fruiting trees though, it could be a lot of work unless youre really dedicated but there are also fruit fly lures and traps available to hang in trees as an alternative. trance

Recommendation of any pesticide - homemade organic or not - is really foolhardy and quite pointless unless you know specifically what insect is causing the problem. The above remedy is for leaf eating or sucking insects (and with dubious effectiveness, I might add) so how effective it might be on whatever critters are damaging the fruit itself is certaily questionable. These are often flying insects - moths or flies (and later wasps and hornets) - that lay eggs that develop into larvae that burrrow into the fruits. Garlic pepper spray will have absolutely no impact on them. But there are other organic methods for controlling these types of pests. It is just imperative to know exactly what kind of pest you are dealing with before any reasonable suggestions can be made.

No problem. It can be put down whenever the ground isn't frozen...if it were me, I'd wait 'till next year and not forget (buy it now, I don't recall an expiration on it) :) Since they're pretty much done eating, especially near the surface, I would worry about it kinda "diluting", if that makes sense...not sure if that's possible or not, just one of those things that crossed my mind. I just made sure to put it down at the peak time of year, thinking that it would be "better". I do believe the reasoning for the teaspoon every 4x4 is to have a high concentration of spore, and thus a better chance of a grub ingesting the spore and spreading it. It may take longer to really work if you put it down now, versus at the peak heating/feeding of grubs. Quick search turned up an faq... "Q: What is the shelf life of Milky Spore? A: Milky Spore has unlimited shelf life as long as it is stored in a cool dry place."

I went no-spray many years ago. Encouraging birds, lizards, toads & frogs helped a lot. The rose area has a couple of bird feeders, three waters, including one big plant platter on the ground that the frogs love to soak in. Has some large rocks in it so tiny birds feel safe using it for baths & drinking. Please, NO OFFENSE intended, but I didn't have outdoor cats or dogs, which helps if you're trying to establish a wildlife-friendly yard. Yes, I LOVE pets!!! If you have outdoor pets, maybe you can place feeders & water in more raised or sheltered locations. Hang a few bird houses in sheltered places & I'm careful not to disturb bird nests in nearby shrubs & trees. My dad's fruit trees (also native species) attract birds, too. They sample a bit, but do little harm. A few overturned broken pots under shrubs make good toad hideouts. I have sprayed the veggies & some herbs that were getting gobbled. Used a solution of blender-shredded artemisia leaves--bitterest stuff I could think of--& it seemed to work. So now I clip stems & leaves to mulch them around the affected plants. Good luck.