Organic Aphid Control

Non-Toxic Pest Control – How To Control Pests Forever Without Any Chemicals

I have talked before about how using non-toxic pest control products in your organic gardening can work in the short term, but I have also hinted at the problems of using this approach continuously. Today, I’ll get into the really good stuff.

Why Do Diseases and Insects Eat Your Plants?

Why do insects eat your plants? Why do “bad” bacteria, fungi and other protists (I will refer to all of these as diseases from now on) eat your plants? It all comes down to the same reason and it’s probably not what you think.

When planning for our non-toxic pest control, we tend to think insects and diseases are making our plants unhealthy, but actually, they are there because our plants are unhealthy. This is one of the biggest shifts we need to make in our thinking when moving to organic gardening practices.

As discussed last time, animals prefer healthy plants, but insects and diseases prefer the opposite. They choose plants that have either a deficiency of excess – a nutritional imbalance – of one or more nutrients. They literally do not possess the enzymes necessary to digest “healthy” plants.

In fact, they don’t even see healthy plants as a food source at all! Sounds crazy, right?

Well I’m going to explain it, because this is one of the most important concepts to understand when talking not only about non-toxic pest control, but organic gardening in general. I won’t go into too much detail, but here’s the gist of it.

How Insects And Diseases Find Our Plants

Animals (like us) see in the visual light spectrum. Insects and diseases do a lot of their “seeing” in the infrared light spectrum. Insects do this by using their antennae and tuning into electromagnetic frequencies.

So in your organic garden, your sick plants – those that have a nutritional imbalance – emit a frequency in the infrared light spectrum that a pest “sees” with its antenna and it recognizes it as food.

Healthy plants simply do not emit these frequencies. So insects and diseases do not see healthy plants as a food source.

Why do sick plants invite predators to eat them? I don’t think we know for sure, but many of the smartest ecological scientists, farmers and organic gardeners think the plants don’t want to survive since it would be a detriment to their species.

If sick plants were to continually reproduce, the species would not be as strong and would have a much more difficult time surviving. So they “take one for the team”, so to speak. I figure plants don’t have the same anxiety about death that we do.

Non-Toxic Pest Control – What’s Wrong With It?

Other than the fact that they stop most organic gardeners from shifting their paradigm to learn that plant-feeding organisms only eat unhealthy plants, non-toxic pest control products have a couple of other problems.

Many of them harm the plants to some degree, and most healthy plants can handle it, but if we’re spraying plants that are already suffering, the damage will often be worse.

Another problem is if we keep killing the offending organism with non-toxic pest control products, the predators of those pests may be killed or at least will never set up shop. Ladybugs won’t lay their eggs, which therefore won’t hatch to eat the aphids. Many of the beneficial microorganisms that would consume our black spot or mildew will be killed when we use baking soda or something similar.

Killing the pests does not change anything. Pesticides do not give the plant the nutrients it needs.

What is the ultimate organic gardening goal for organic pest control? Create health in your soil and your plants so that the pests never cause any problems.

what are some organic pest control treatments for my garden?

to deal with cut worms, aphids, slugs, and snails.

Encourage the predators into your garden for a start.
Hedgehogs. Allow them access. Make them a nice hideyhole to hibernate in. A pot (plastic or terracotta) laid on its side and filled with straw. Give them somewhere to sleep in the day as well like an undisturbed pile of logs.
Make a pond or bog garden to encourage newts, frogs and toads. It does not have to be very big to sustain an awful lot of wildlife. Put up bird boxes and feed the birds.
Put up bat boxes to encourage bats to your garden. They eat the moths that lay the eggs that turn into cutworms.
While waiting for all that wildlife to arrive stop using any pesticides/herbicides and find friendly alternatives. There are slug pellets on the market now that are completely organic.

http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=61_179&products_id=1821

Aphids can be sprayed off with a hose set on high pressure but if you have stopped using nasty sprays in your garden then the ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies should start turning up. They will soon devour all flies. Black, white and green. Learn to recognise egg, larval and adult stage of your predators so you do not kill the wrong thing by mistake.

http://www.turning-earth.co.uk/ladybirds.htm

http://www.kendall-bioresearch.co.uk/hvfly.htm

Buy your predators if you are too impatient for them to turn up.

http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=61_183&osCsid=37fad549f649878443b40b4bc6c716c9

Do not freak out at wasps in your garden. Try to live with them as long as their nest is not too nearby. They have a voracious appetite for flies,caterpillars and ants.
If you see a pest do not grab the nearest spray just squish it. If you are squeamish put a glove on.
There are many products on the market now that are organic and will reduce the numbers of most common pests but if you work WITH nature you should find that even these become redundant.

Organic Insect Control: Snails, Earwigs, Aphids, Woodlice & More

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Safer Brand 5118 Insect Killing Soap – 16-Ounce Concentrate $8.01 Concentrated insect killing soap. Use on houseplants, ornamental foliage plants, flowering plants, fruits, and vegetables. Kills aphids, mealy bugs, spider mites, and whiteflies. Does not kill beneficial insects such as ladybugs, praying mantis, and others, when used as directed. Insecticidal soap dries out the waxy outer skin of insects. Can be used up to the day of harvest. 1/2 gallon bottle mak…

Safer Brand 5110 Insect Killing Soap – 32-Ounce Spray $4.94 Concentrated insect killing soap. Use on houseplants, ornamental foliage plants, flowering plants, fruits, and vegetables. Kills aphids, mealy bugs, spider mites, and whiteflies. Does not kill beneficial insects such as ladybugs, praying mantis, and others, when used as directed. Insecticidal soap dries out the waxy outer skin of insects. Can be used up to the day of harvest. 1/2 gallon bottle mak…

Hydrofarm GH2045 4-Ounce AzaMax $15.27 OMRI listed Azamax is a broad-spectrum organic insecticide that controls pests like mites, aphids, whiteflies, caterpillars, thrips, grasshoppers and more! Its active ingredient, a natural derivative of the neem tree, is safe enough for application in any high people-traffic area. It’s also great as an additive to other insecticides, as it makes pests more vulnerable to them….

Bayer 502610B 2-in-1 Systemic Rose & Flower Care Granules – 4 lb. $10.51 Systemic granular product that feeds and protects roses and flowers from insects including Japanese beetles for up to 6 weeks. Fertilizer analysis: 6 9 6 for strong roots and beautiful blooms. Rainproof. Rain and watering cannot wash off this internal protection. Active ingredient: .22% Imidacloprid….

Great Garden Fix-Its: Organic Remedies for Everything from Aphids to Weeds (Rodale Organic Gardening Books) $14.95 Looking for fast solutions to all your gardening problems? Then open up the pages of Great Garden Fix-Its, where you’ll find advice that really works– straight from backyard gardeners like yourself. Packed with easy to read, useful tips, Great Garden Fix-Its is sure to become the book you turn to year after year for problem solving. Some of the simple hints you’ll discover include how to:* Keep r…

The influence of landscape context and farming practices on parasitism of cereal aphids [An article from: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment] $10.95 This digital document is a journal article from Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Description: Agri-environmental schemes in Europe aim to support biodiversity and ecological functions in agroecosystems, whi…

Bonide 857 Pyrethrin Concentrate $10.12 Concentrate. Insect control for aphids, beetles, webworms, leafhoppers, and more than 20 other insects. Perfect for vegetable gardening. 8 oz. bottle….

Fire Ant Control W/Conserve- 1 lb. $18.97 Green Light Fire Ant Control is attractive and deadly to fire ants. Fire Ants quickly find/pickup this bait, take it back to the mound, and feed it to the entire colony including the queen(s). Ants start dying in 24-36 hours with mound/colony destruction in 3 to 14 days. Broadcast applications may take longer….

Perma-Guard Diatomaceous Earth DE Food Grade 50 lb bag $34.97 Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth (Fossil Shell Flour) has many uses: in the household, with pets, on plants, around livestock, and for stored grain. It is totally organic and listed with OMRI. With more than 600 deposits of diatomite west of the Mississippi-and only four (to our knowledge) that can be considered food grade-it is very important that people know what they are using. The vast majority …