What is the point of the flour/baking soda combo? What's it supposed to do?

Sluggo is a brand of environmentally friendly (and pet safe) slug and snail bait based on iron phosphate.

Tanglefoot is typically applied directly to the base of woody plants (sometimes on a prepared strip) to stop the progression or access of pests climbing up in to the plant. Sticky traps or yellow sticky 'flypaper' comes ready to go and is typically hung in a garden or green house to attract flying pests like white fly or fungus gnats. Not all insects will be drawn to it.

All sorts of crazy things on YouTube. It's not top-of-the-list for gardening information. I swear some of the videos there are put up just to see if people are silly enough to believe them.

But some of them can be quite good and it is up to the viewer to figure out if a particular video maker actually understands what they are talking about and presents it accurately and intelligently. This particular one does not.

Dave

so yall are saying that its useless. ? The lady said the flour and baking soda mixture would kill them supposedly they be attracted to the flour and the baking soda would kill them...

Did anyone ACTUALLY watch that particular video that I listed the link to

also so no one addressed the "salt" issue.... course also baking SODA supp to be good for mildew on plant or whatever its called

thanks all

Who is "them" that would be killed? As I asked a few days ago, what exactly are you trying to do? I don't want to watch a 6 minute video. Especially one that starts out with ducks. No, you're not trying to kill ducks.

This is pretty confusing. Why don't you start over.

Yes I watched it - and yes it is useless.

I watched it even with the ducks and the yelling and the rambling from topic to topic - she never stays on track - and her instructions on how to mark your pantry jars with a magic marker, and her failure to even address WHICH fungi this was supposed to work on and how, etc.

She never indicates which pests it is supposed to work on - nothing works on every garden pest - or how it would affect beneficial insects or the plant's leaves ability to breathe or do photosynthesis, etc. when covered with flower, soap or baking soda. She doesn't provide the common warnings about using home-made sprays correctly to avoid damage to plants. Do I really need to continue?

So the question would be why would you find this video at all interesting much less useful?

Dave

I also watched and considered it pretty much a complete waste of time :-) Was way longer than necessary to get the point across and even then I'm not sure what her point was.

Baking soda - sodium bicarbonate - is an effective control for powdery mildew. Potassium bicarbonate is an even better one. There may be some effect on other fungal issues (notably black spot on roses) but the focus of either of these products is their ability to stop the spread of PM. If you add a few drops of cooking or horticultural oil or dish soap (not detergent) to the mix, that helps the product stick to the foliage

The flour serves absolutely no purpose at all and just makes a gummy mess.

Baking soda in not a chemical salt.

Tanglefoot will catch anything that comes into contact with it.....bees, butterflies, beneficial parasitic wasps, predatory insects, birds, lizards, frogs and toads, and more. Don't use it.

I don't use baking soda as an insecticide, herbicide, tomato "sweetener", or soil pH tester for several reasons.

Yes, I did listen to the video and thought it pretty awful.

A common mythological theme in gardening is that cheap household things have fantastic gardening uses that you never would have thought of. Flour! Milk! Sugar! Baking soda! Cooking oil! (But you can make pretty good scones with those.) Oh yes, epsom salt and molasses as well. Load it on. The more the better. Actually, even for magnesium deficiency, which is rare, epsom salt is an uneconomical way to treat it.

Gasoline used to be one of the cheapest liquid substances. I must have missed the myth about gasoline being good for plants Flaming good gardens, I guess. Of course, salt is pretty cheap, and no one has come up with a gardening myth for using salt.

The mythology is that these are magic potions and powders that always do wonders for plants, and you can find those magic potions and powders in your own house, blessed as it is. Yes, a few of them have some use in mitigating specific pests, or providing specific nutrients that your soil lacks, but that's not how they're often recommended.

YouTube is a common source for such myths, and the web in general is a medium of absolute truth that promotes them, and usually does so with no references or justification.

Sorry, but the practice of magic and mythology in gardening has always bothered me, and it is deeply entrenched.

While I agree in principle with all the above, there are some household products that can and do have an established purpose in the garden and have been scientifically demonstrated to offer benefit. Sodium/potassium bicarbonate is one: milk is another.

No question that sodium bicarbonate CAN offer benefit for specific purposes. Many of these things are advocated as an everything for everyone soil remedy. Epsom salt is a classic example. Magnesium deficiency? Nah, just throw it in. Milk? That's been looked at carefully, and at best minor improvements in yield were seen. It's often cast as a calcium additive when, in fact, there are VASTLY better such additives. No question that the milk treatment was not cost effective. You won't see tank cars bumping out to commercial ag fields loaded with milk.

When you're adding these things, to make everything better, you need to chant a spell as well. Magic words for magic sauces.

so yall are saying that its useless. ? The lady said the flour and
baking soda mixture would kill them supposedly they be attracted to the
flour and the baking soda would kill them...

Who is "THEY"? YouTube viewers? Fire ants? Slugs?

Did anyone ACTUALLY watch that particular video that I listed the link to

No ... it's up to the person asking the question to spend the time to watch the video, and summarize the claims made in the video, then ask coherent questions about them.

Dan ..." I guess. Of course, salt is pretty cheap, and no one has come up with a gardening myth for using salt."

Yup ... with some detergent and a gallon or so of vinegar, it's a magical mystery weed killer. Saw it on Pinterest so it must work!

http://lazygardens.blogspot.com/2013/04/smackdown-vinegar-vs-glyphosate-for.html

Well, lazy, as a weed killer, I'll bet gasoline would have worked even better than salt! Geez, I'll bet gasoline would kill SVBs and slugs too! Probably do a job on fungus as well. Hey, light a match, and they are ALL GONE. What a concept! Nope, not a myth! I'd better start a YouTube video about that. Start the cameras rolling. Yes, if you want to kill stuff, there are options galore.