Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Pest in the Garden!!!!

I have everything planted into the garden/pots.  We have had some cooler than usual weather so I'm still harvesting lettuce and radishes and the other cool weather veggies are doing great but some of my warm weather veggies really haven't taken off except for my tomatoes.  This is my first year to grow Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin which is a c. moschata winter squash  which are supposed to be more resistant against squash vine borers which are a problem around here. I really hate using chemicals to control pest in the garden I use soap and water and baking soda to help with pest and powdering mildew. I knock off spidermites and aphids with hard spray of water it seems to work just fine.  I also try to attract beneficial insects by planting flowers and herbs in my vegetable garden. I interplant basil alyssum, catnip, catmint, marigolds, nasturtiums, dill, parsley, thyme, zinnia in my vegetable garden.  When you use pesticide in your garden areas, you kill off both bad bugs and good bugs like the ladybug and aphids if you would have left them alone and let the lady bugs keep the aphids levels low enough the plants would not have any long term damage. If you spray insecticide you throw off the population balance and the bad bugs that eat your plants increase in numbers because there are not enough good bugs to eat them. The beneficial bugs you do have will not reproduce until there is already a large-enough population of bad bugs to feed all the beneficial baby bugs.  I am learning to be patient and let the natural process to occur. 

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