Insect control

[Trev62]

We use various things to control insects etc. Here are few:

Soap Spray - for mites, aphids, whiteflies, most beetles and other leaf eaters - mix a small amount of washing up liquid with water and spray all the infected areas early morning or late evening, never when it is hot and sunny. It coats the blighters so suffocates them.

Neem Oil - 2 teaspoons neem oil, 1 teaspoon washing up liquid, 1 litre of water - Shake really well and spray everything and anything, non poisonous to pets in fact we use it neat on Max to prevent ticks and fleas etc. it also helps his skin. Really useful stuff. You can give your veg a preventative spray before anything starts eating them.

Tomato Leaf - chop up two cup fulls of tomato leaves, take them from the bottom of the plant as it does not damage to your tomato crop, add a litre of water and soak overnight, strain and spray. Being a member of the nightshade family it contains chemicals that kill a lot of insects.

Also rhubarb leaves boiled in water and then strained, the residue used at a mix of 1:10 makes a superb insecticide and kills any bugs crawling around the walls and outside of the house.

Anyone else use similar things???

[lancashire lass]

Rhubarb leaves also handy to make a foul smelling tea (soak the leaves in a big bucket / water butt until they rot) - when diluted and watered over brassicas (cabbage / brocolli / brussel sprouts), the cabbage butterfly can't "taste" the scent of the plant so will not lay eggs on them. However, apparently the odour is so awful that you have to have a strong stomach LOL

Garlic spray - supposed to kill bugs too (not tried it as I didn't want garlic pests attracted to my plot) Although I'd never seen or read of anyone using it, hot chilli should make an effective insecticide - ripened hot chillies should contain capsiacin which is to prevent insects (and mammals except people of course) from eating the fruit. One worth looking at is aspirin - it has anti-fungal properties and been tested as a cheap preventative method of protecting crops such as potatoes and tomatoes against blight (it won't work AFTER they have got blight - strange as it may seem, but plants do have an immune system of sorts. When attacked, chemicals released from damaged tissue produce a response against the pests or disease but it is a slow build up. Aspirin helps to trigger that response. Capsaicin in chilli plants are another - molly coddled plants produce some capsaicin, but plants that are routinely knocked about (use your fingers to rock the branches or crush a leaf or so) have higher amounts if you understand what I mean)

One of the best insect control I've used is fine netting (debris / scaffold netting is cheap and keeps most flying insects off, but not white fly, as in small flying aphid ones) Fine mesh / enviromesh is particularly useful to keeping carrot fly, cabbage fly and onion fly from laying eggs where larvae work their way down to the root.

Soap spray is probably more effective against aphids - the soap itself doesn't kill them, it merely removes the oils on their body and then they are killed by drying action. It shouldn't affect other beetles like ladybirds.

Neem oil on the other hand is not so discriminating and does kill off beneficial insects too. Beneficial insects like ladybirds actually eat a lot of aphids and there are other predatory insects too not to mention bees for flowering plants.

Companion planting or sacrificial planting is worth looking at - French and Mexican marigolds naturally produce pyrethrum (insecticide) so always worth planting between crop plants - such as tomatoes, cabbages, peppers. Mexican marigold known to extrude pyrethrum through their roots so good for root crops or keep soil pests away. I think chrysanthemums also produce pyrethrum too. Pot marigold should be planted in asparagus beds to prevent asparagus beetle infestation (if already infested, it might be worth using a pesticide for vegetable crops, not when in flower, just to get on top of the problem first) [pot marigold is not the same as french marigold, so don't confuse the two!] Have a look online for other companion planting ideas. Sacrificial planting usually are more attractive to bugs so is a way of luring them away from your crops - nasturtiums attract black fly from bean plants idea.

Or grow mustard as a green manure and dig into the soil (cover with plastic and seal down to keep the gases in that are released from the damaged plant material) Said to be one method of keeping down soil pests that affect potato crops.

PS I should warn you that it is against EU legislation to make your own "pesticides". One of those reasons is that someone comes up with an idea like using tobacco because it contains nicotine, but it likely also has tobacco virus which is lethal to tomato and potato crops not to mention lethal against bees. Viruses are usually spread by aphids but can also be airborne. Pyrethrum pesticides are lethal to bees (and in concentration to people but apparently especially to cats)

Solarisation is a good method of killing off a lot of pests in the soil (especially mites) Dampen the soil, cover with plastic sheet (clear or black) and let the sun heat the soil up. High temperatures kill off a lot of the mites and eggs - worth leaving down for a few weeks in midsummer so the heat penetrates deep down into the soil.

[Trev62]

lancashirelass - thanks for taking the time for that post, several things in there we will look at. We have noticed that in a field not far from us they are growing fennel as a barrier between each crop, I am hoping to catch the owners to ask why, any ideas???

I should warn you that it is against EU legislation to make your own "pesticides". One of those reasons is that someone comes up with an idea like using tobacco because it contains nicotine, but it likely also has tobacco virus which is lethal to tomato and potato crops not to mention lethal against bees.

I think (no offence intended) the EU should be more concerned with allowing GM crops and mass illegal immigration rather than my washing up liquid and neem oil!!!