Organic Pest Control Tips from Schmeg.com

  

Hornworms get quite large and can give you a thrill when you meet one in your tomato patch. They are rarely numerous, however; just pick them off one at a time (use gloves if you can't stand to touch them) and drop them into a jar of soapy water to kill them. If you find one covered with little white knobs, leave it be. Those knobs are parasitic wasp eggs, so let them hatch and go hunting for more hornworms.

Squash vine borers burrow into the base of squash, melon, and cucumber vines, causing them to wilt and die rapidly. You may be able to save a plant by slitting the base of the stem, killing the worm, and mounding moist soil over the base of the plant. Cover young plants with floating row covers to exclude the egg-laying moths. Uncover plants when the first female flowers open. Spray just the base of the stems of uncovered plants with rotenone once or twice a week.

Beetles-
Most beetles are not interested in your plants. Some, such as the familiar lady bug, hunt and capture plant-eating pests such as aphids. A few types are notorious plant-eaters themselves. Here's how to deal with the notorious few:

Colorado potato beetle larvae and adults prefer potato leaves, but will devour tomato and eggplant leaves too. Use 10 to 12 inches of loose straw mulch around plants to discourage them. Or cover young plants with floating row covers untol midsummer to exclude flying adults. Spray uncovered plants with BTSD once or twice a week if larvae are seen. Shake adults off onto a sheet of cardboard and pour them into a bucket of soapy water.

Cucumber beetles eat cucumber leaves and petals and will nibble on other vegetable plants as well. Their feeding itself doesn't damage your harvest, but they can carry and infect your plants with mosaic virus and bacterial wilt. These incurable diseases can kill your plants in days. Cover seedbeds or young plants with floating row covers to keep the flying beetles from getting even one bite. Uncover the plants when the first female flowers open. Spray uncovered plants with rotenone or sabadilla once or twice a week. Better yet, plant a few seeds every two weeks until midsummer so you'll always have some new, healthy plants coming on.

Flea beetles eat tiny round holes in the leaves of many vegetables. They can stunt or even kill seedlings. Cover susceptible seedlings with floating row covers until harvest (for greens) or until plants are a foot or so tall. Treat infested soil with parasitic nematodes.

Japanese beetles eat anything and everything, or at least it seems that way some summers. Knock adults off plants onto a sheet of cardboard in the early morning and pour them into a bucket of soapy water. Traps for the adults are commonly available but, since beetles fly a long way to find food, 1 or 2 traps will bring you more problems than you would have had with no traps. To use the traps, you need about 15 per acre.
Install them in a circle around-but at least 50 feet away from-the plants you want to protect. You can kill the grubs by applying beneficial nematodes or milky disease spores to your turf, but don't waste your time and money if you can't treat at least an acre or more. (Maybe you can get your whole neighborhood to cooperate!)

<< Prev

Next