Pest Problems - Natural Remedies
by Anthony
(Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
I have my tomato plants, strawberry plants, pepper plants all dying because of something that is crawling and eating all of my leaves, and flowers. They are tiny little green pests that turn white when they die. I tried spraying a mixture of water, soap, and olive oil but that did not kill them. I really don't want to use chemicals- are there natural remedies?
What the heck do I do? It's really frustrating because the plants do great, like my strawberry plants, but as soon as I get flowers, boom, they die. Same thing happens with my cucumber and cantaloupe. I could really use the help. By the way, love the SBI site. I have one myself on vitamins and nutrition. Great job here!
Answer: Anthony- pests can be one of the most frustrating problems to deal with in an otherwise great garden. Trust me, I have had my bug woes. Most of my advice on this topic, such as using diatomaceous earth, Bang!, or neem oil, can be found on my natural pest control page. However, I have a few additional suggestions as well.
First, definitely check out the link above and learn about diatomaceous earth. Past that, I think you are on the right track with the soap and olive oil mixture. Unfortunately, spraying plants that are exposed to full (or almost full) sun has its own problems. Use only a little oil. Keep using the soap, to keep the water surface tension broken on the solution. This will help the solution more thoroughly soak whatever you spray it on.
In addition, consider adding a few other things to your homemade solution. The tobacco from one cigarette, soaked overnight in a quart of warm water, makes a pretty effective spray against little bugs. The same is true for cinnamon and cloves. A commercial product called Bang! is made up of garlic and hot peppers. It is easy enough to make a batch yourself by crushing several cloves of garlic and several hot peppers and, like the cigarette, soaking them overnight in a quart or so of warm water. It smells like you are cooking a well seasoned steak when you use it. Just be careful when you spray it- it is basically mace.
Try to do all of your spraying at sun up. Spraying anything on your plants while in the full sun can be harmful to the plants, and wetting them down just before the temps drop for the night only invites fungus and mold. Also, with these type of homemade remedies, you will want to re-apply the spray pretty often (or use diatomaceous earth in between spray applications). Certainly re-apply after a good rain. I hope this helps you out Anthony, and Happy Growing!
AffordableGarden Design&Setup
Hi everyone, Jason from Jason's Indoor Guide here. When I got started with hydroponic gardening more than 24 years ago, my first garden used rockwool cubes and B.C. Nutrients....and I remember thinking to myself yeah, sure, there may be a lot of advantages to gardening with hydroponics, for example there are very few pest problems, therefore very little pest control, no weeding, no plowing or tilling the soil, no soil testing or having to add things into the garden soil, no watering the garden....but for someone who just wants to grow their own vegetables and have more control over their food supply and the quality of the food that they eat, the cost of constantly having to buy grow media and hydroponic nutrients makes this an expensive hobby for most people...
Epic Nutrient Change
I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT
having to buy food at the grocery store, it is surely cheaper to grow
your own food hydroponically even with the cost of high quality
nutrients. Nevertheless, I didn't have a whole lot of money to work with
and I needed to make my efforts as affordable and effective as
possible....and in the last 24 years I HAVE learned a thing or two!
As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the
systems that I use personally are homemade systems. As I got 3 or 4
years of experience under my belt, I quickly adopted a preference to
standing water systems and systems that use expanded clay pellets or
lava rock, because the media is re-usable and it eliminates a huge
operating expense. So once a hydroponic system is built, garden
maintenance is minimal- check and adjust the nutrient solution daily,
and to change it completely every 2 weeks....and the biggest operating
cost is the hydroponic nutrients. (and the electric bill, lol)...
Homemade Cloner
And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.
Unfortunately, I have been gardening for over 24 years and I have only
just recently mastered this difficult skill....and even then, only
because I happened to find a very easy to follow, high quality technique
and decided to follow the instructions to the letter. I produced more
high quality compost in just one week than I was able to use in a whole
year! If you can master the technique, I highly recommend it. It is one of the top 3 things you can do to
increase the productivity of your food production efforts, while at the
same time decreasing the amount of effort required to grow all of your
own food, and decreasing the total cost of operating your food
production system.
And when I say decrease operating costs, I mean decrease them to almost
ZERO, especially if you are producing your own nutrients...
High Efficiency
Hydroponics
The ultimate solution to eliminate the cost of your hydroponic nutrients: Imagine a hydroponic system that does not require you to buy any nutrients, does not require you to make your own compost, and does not require you to brew your own nutrient tea. Seriously! No cost and no effort as far as providing nutrients to your plants! Plus, at the end of the gardening cycle you harvest all of your garden vegetables, PLUS YOU HARVEST FISH from the system--->
Aquaponics
This solution is aquaponics. If you are serious about producing all of your own food and being self-sufficient, this is the ultimate solution for reducing expenses (as much as possible), reducing the total amount of work required, and maximizing the productivity of your gardening efforts. I have been gardening for over 24 years, and it is the perfect food production solution in my opinion.
Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!
The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!
