I am in agreement with comments above... the single most important thing you can do to reduce pests, in my opinion, is provide healthy soil. It is not often mentioned that most plants _do_ have defenses of their own; what we consider to be "flavors" are often chemical defenses against insects. Provided that the plants are healthy enough for those defenses to be effective, they can often fend for themselves. Cucumber beetles, for example, are attracted to compounds given off by plants under stress. This could be caused by disease, inadequate water, or previous attack by other insects - such as squash bugs. Given a high organic matter, pH-balanced soil with good drainage & adequate water, plants are healthier & less attractive to the beetles. While there may still be some present, their population is considerably smaller. The second thing, as mentioned by Lacyvail, is to create (or at least not discourage) a local ecosystem that encourages beneficial insects. It has often been mentioned by those who purchase those insects, that it's hard to keep them around. To do so, you need to provide a food supply for all points in their life cycle. A wide range of flowers, with long or overlapping blooming periods, is helpful. In addition to perennials _near_ your vegetable garden, plant annuals _in_ the garden. And for the larvae - which represent your true resident population - you might need to learn to tolerate enough of an aphid population to sustain them. If you are accustomed to killing off your aphids early, you might be inadvertently destroying the next generation of ladybugs & lacewings as well. For severe infestations, it might be more effective to go after the ants (which usually spread the aphids) rather than the aphids themselves. There may be some truth to companion planting; I rotate all of my vegetables each year, and have noted some good combinations (such as beans & Swiss chard). There are also some plants that don't play well with others, such as okra. If your garden is high-intensive/high-density, then it is more important to know which plants _do not_ grow well together, than it would be with conventional methods. But I think that for the most part, the issue is not which plants grow with which - it is to grow as wide a range of small plantings as possible, as opposed to large blocks. Large blocks of anything (mono cropping) promote the easy spread of insects or disease, and provide a stronger scent trail for flying insects to follow. When I began saving seeds seriously, it forced me to alter the way that I gardened. If I wanted pure seed, I had to provide space & barriers between different varieties. This meant that my beans & tomatoes, for instance, could no longer be grown together in one place, but were spaced out in different "cells" throughout the garden. In any form of experimentation, there are often unexpected results... and in this case, the fringe-benefit was an enormous reduction in insect damage. This is not to say that I have no damage - only that it has been reduced to the point of being (usually) tolerable. One last note... to encourage greater soil fertility, about 10 years ago I began to leave clover alone when weeding. I would still pull it out if it was directly in a row, but in paths & between rows was OK. After years of this, I now get a good stand of clover in the garden. When rabbits get in (as they always do) they prefer the clover in the paths to almost all of the vegetables. I guess that makes it a "trap crop" for rabbits. ;-) Only when I began to grow soybeans did I find something they like even better (and "like" is an understatement).

Hi reptile girl: Let me say that I understand your feelings of being critizied and your question ignored. I read your original post then everyone thereafter, then back to yours. I'm hoping I can help you feel less attacked and perhaps give you a better understanding of how this site works. I also had an experience of feeling attacked and I barked back, then several people jumped on me etc. This is what I hear in your original posting: you are very proud of the hard work you have put into your garden of choice, SYG. You continue to give info about your efforts to provide the best growing mixture and fertilizers that have worked for you. You were not looking for any additional information about soil structure, how you should change the way you garden, etc. you are a happy camper with what you have accomplished and should be. The one question that you asked was what organic fertilizer could you add to your garden to insure the best possible crops. Instead you got bombarded with advice, corrections, suggestions, critisims etc. These are my thoughts that I hope help you; first it is helpful to understand that the people who hang out on the Garden Web are extremely knowledgable gardening people either through university or years of experience or both. These people can help you with virtually any question or problem that you may have. Also just by reading in several different areas you will learn so much more than you can imagine. Now all these experts are great resources but just like a professor, they are quite willing to share their ideas, thoughts, tried experiments and so on. And just as professors in the same subject area, they do not all agree with each others view point or practices. Often many of the postings are the experts discussing between themselves the positive & negatives of what has been written. One thing can be said about this site, there are many generous people who are willing to share their views and that's great. What you probably should do in the future is ask your question, that's it. By putting down so much info, everyone got on board with their ideas, stuff went back and forth and you ultimately felt attacked. They really are not attacking, they are very eager to share their knowledge to be a benefit to you. If you visit again and have a concern or question, I'd suggest giving only pertainent info that would help the other readers to give you exactly what your looking for, no more, no less. Those of us who reply to a post should probably take an extra minute to understand exactly what info is needed and offer only that unless the poster comes back to ask for more info. Efforts to help all who post are truly generous with their time and talent but I can see the flip side, so much response with so much advice and/or critiques can be overwhelming to the newbies. I hate to see & read the sniping back and forth that escalates to a point where some really nasty things are said. I think that before we offer so much advice, we may need to realize that not everyone wants or needs all of the knowledge that we are so eager to share and are then offended "after all we've done" when the writer says "enough." I hope reptile girl that you can see this site in a new positive way. My one big piece of advice comes from a Russian grandma that lived next door years ago. She had several potted rose bushes that produced gorgeous roses and all she did was throw left over vegetables, fruit skins, virtually anything into a pot, covered it with water and left it heat for many hours. What was left she poured on the roses. It sure worked. Last year I had quite a science experiment in my frig. plus stuff to go out to the compost pile. I gathered it all together and decided to put some of the scraps into my blender w/some water and spin for awhile. When I was done I had two big bowls of gunk that I poured on my two Deodor cedars. Within days those trees were sprouting all kinds of new growth on all the branches and both trees became substantially fuller and taller. I thought it was hilarious. Maybe I should repeat that routine and try it diluted much more in several other areas of the garden. I may be on to something. Good luck with your crops, it is fun and rewarding when you can actually feed yourself from your own garden, plus I'm sure the nutrition levels are so much greater than the average found in stores.

Keep in mind that organic growing is, or should be, more about learning about these insect pests and how to grow plants that are less susceptible to them than about which poisons to use to control them. That starts with a good healthy soil that will grow strong and healthy plants. Aphids are attracted to plants that have too lush growth, usually because of too much soil Nitrogen. Purchasing Lady Beetles pro9bqbly is not a good idea since experience has shown they fly away almost as soon as they are released, they are in a reproductive pause mode, and may introduce unwanted diseases into the environment they are released in. Companion planting can help, almost as much as having a good healthy soil. kimmq is kimmsr

Mentha, Off thread, but on topic. Fragrance issues are becoming more & more common. They cost me a job abt 10 yrs. ago; yet I won the unemployment on appeal, twice! Researching this topic, I discovered that it's a big issue on Canada. They've made their hospitals all fragrance free, so if you're a vendor selling to their hospitals, all your products have to be scent free. The bldg management of the bldg where I work decided to fragrance the bldg lobby! I had to look up OSHA regs & go to my boss immediately on learning this. Happily, some tenants objected & the topic was dropped. Seems this is a 'desirable' perk among some hotels & resorts (yikes). There's a prominent shopping center in mid-Manhattan can't even ENTER 'cause of the smells coming from the Sephora shop. I WISH it were only at holiday time -- ACKKKK. I feel ya Mentha, it stinks (pun intended)! Lena / Karen