I haven't used it, but the ingredients have been in use in rose gardens for the better part of a century. The insecticide in Garden Safe is the "potassium salts of fatty acids" component. This is just old-fashioned lye soap and it should kill your aphids efficiently so long as you spray directly on them. It has no residual effect and the dried residue will not harm insects. To an extent, I think this amounts to saying that blasting the aphids off with a hose would be no more work and you could see the results immediately. The fungicide in the product is sulfur. Sulfur is a moderately effective control for mildew. If blackspot pressure is not high in your area, you might well get satisfactory control with sulfur. Safer's product is made by Woodstream and they have an especially effective form of elemental sulfur made by dissolving sulfur in propylene glycol.

I don't think the beer itself directly kills slugs...they are attracted to the hops in it. They climb in and get so drunk on it that they drown! It is a disgusting, slimy mess, isn't it? Yucky! I don't have a problem with them in my garden, but they are inside the workshop, living down in the concrete drainage channels along the outside walls. I keep my rabbit in there and injured, re-cooping chickens, so there is always "food" for them in there. They leave my garden alone. The big black Ground Beetles go in there and keep them in-check. I don't have to do a thing. ~Annie

when used as directed, any pesticide available off the shelf of any open to the public retailer is safe. the key here is the first phrase, WHEN USED AS DIRECTED. every one of my garden hoses has a label that states "this hose or it's components contains lead, a substance know to teh state fo California to cause cancer". i don't plan on eating the fittings, so the lead ain't gonna hurt me. i also do not drink from my pesticide dispensers, and i wash off fully immediately after applying pesticides. i have been directly sprayed before, and i can tell you it ain't no fun. when i worked for the USDA doing pesticide experiments, we were working a field hand counting bugs on the cotton. a crop duster sprayed the wrong field and soaked 7 of us. we all had to take off for a few days due to nausea and our eyes burning. this is why fields have signs up that NO ONE may enter for any reason. when i spray around my house, the same things goes, no people allowed in the area until it dries. and no, i am not baiting people with posts about pesticides. pesiticide use is very common in my area. most folks still use the sevin dust, i switched to liquid for both ease of application and less collateral damage to the environment.

Thank you Jim. YES, they are spraying the breeding areas, they fog from trucks all the time in the Dallas and surrounding areas. They fog with MALATHION, which is an organophosphate, way more dangerous than a pyrethroid. Which are broken down by sunlight, chlorine in the water, bacteria in streams and lakes. It has to TOUCH the insect, which is why they aerial sprya when the mosquitoes are most active. Bees are in their hives, wasps are in their nests, neither should be impacted to any degree. I spray my chicken coop with pyrethrins and you can use it on the birds. You don`t have to take off your shoes, wash your car, wash your patio furniture, it is not absorbed well by skin. You don`t have to turn off your ac or cover your house. The funniest thing I have seen yet was the lady screaming at city council that she DRENCHES her kids in DEET and is upset they are spraying this POISON on her kid. Though why her kid is out in the middle of the night I have no idea. Look up DEET you idiot! 3 deaths,worldwide from pyrethroids, all from extremely concentrated and lengthy exposures, deaths from organophosphates? Thousands if not hundreds of thousands. DEET? Thousands, plus seizures, other medical problems. They never should have told anyone. We are aerial sprayed and fogged all the time. I am here to tell you there is no impact here either. Lots of bees, wasps, aphids, whitefly, dragonflies, butterflies, moths, roaches.... I am surprised anyone in Dallas is still alive the way they have been carrying on, thought they all would have died by now. All we have been doing is fielding calls from angry Dallasites who don`t bother to find out the facts. My opinion of people living in Dallas has certainly dropped lately, one more person cusses at me for "dropping poison on me" I am going to SCREAM! Tally Ho!