In article , "SugarChile" wrote:
cultural practices to avoid the need for fungicides. I don't grow things,
such as roses, that need continual fussing over.

To listen to the rose nu^H^H enthusiasts, you'd think they were all
that way, but plenty of glorious roses do just fine in an atmosphere
of malign neglect. We have some that get minimal care (trim off
obviously dead/broken stuff, but not pruned beyond that, douse with
insecticidal soap as needed and a systemic once a year, and lots of
water) and they bloom like crazy. One is presently making clumps of
blooms the size of dinner plates.

Aside from the real and potential harmful effects of pesticides/herbicides,
I just hate suiting up to use them....and I'm willing to bet that many
homeowners and gardeners skip the warnings about goggles, protective
clothing and respirators.

If it requires all that, it's too much work, and I look for something
else to use

~REZ~

In article , "nswong" wrote:
Hi SugarChile,

I don't grow things,
such as roses, that need continual fussing over.

My family has a rose that came from my grandmother, and never give
flower after my grandmother pass aways. My father put a lot of effort

Perhaps it was in mourning for your grandmother.

After my father pass away, one day I found that it's dead from the
root up, just the top of the plant still remain green. I lay the green
part to the ground, and manage to make it come out shoot and root.

Excellent! I really like the idea of a plant that comes down through a
family for multiple generations. A rose is much nicer than our family
plant (an apparently immortal philodendron that goes back at least to
the early 1960s).

In my hand, I never give it any fertiliser, and never spray, I even
don't care when something eating the leave. The only thing I do are
replace the soil yearly when the soil are lacking organic matter, and
remove the old branches to force it come out some new one. It now
giving flower and sometime will four or five flower at the sametime.
I do believe as long as we keep the soil good, and constantly remove
old plant/brances, it will stay helthy for most of the time. This
included those plant that people believe hard to maintain.

For many plants, especially trees (and roses really are a sort of
small tree) that's true. Sometimes we fuss over them TOO much and
perhaps get things out of balance, when leaving well enough alone
would be better.

~REZ~

In article
,
"SugarChile" wrote:

Have you tried Bt for the hornworms?

I wasn't trying to be judgmental, and I'm glad you didn't take it that way.
We all have to make decisions about what level of pesticide use we are
comfortable with....I was just hoping to encourage people would educate
themselves before automatically reaching for the spray. It sounds like you
are working to create a balanced ecosystem and I applaud you for it.

I'm even putting predators inside my new greenhouse. ;-)
Anyone squishes a spider in my yard gets yelled at!!!

Gourd birdhouses encourage house wrens and they pretty much clean up the
yard of bugs when they have babies, but unfortunately, they also eat
spiders. Most of my spiders are nocturnal so they still do ok.

Tell me more about Bt for hornworms???
I'm really not well educated on that product.


Personally, I use dormant oil, "Sluggo" for slugs,

Try the beer. Besides, it's somewhat satisfying to see a pan of drowned
slugs. G

Bt for serious
caterpillar infestations (such as fall webworms), insecticidal soap, and
that's it. I handpick some pests, and learn to live with others. I
encourage beneficial predators as much as possible, and try to follow good
cultural practices to avoid the need for fungicides. I don't grow things,
such as roses, that need continual fussing over.

I also gave up on roses except for climbing blazes. Those do ok with no
fuss. I just had too many roses die. sigh

Soap spray is great, but my ladybird beetle population is high enough
now to pretty much take care of apids, mealy bugs and scale. You should
have seen the larvae in the asparagus bed last year! There were ladybird
pupae all over the ferns. It was neat. :-)

I've taken care of my dill pests (swallowtail butterfly larvae) by
planting extra parsley and fennel to place them on. They can eat all of
that that they want.


Aside from the real and potential harmful effects of pesticides/herbicides,
I just hate suiting up to use them....and I'm willing to bet that many
homeowners and gardeners skip the warnings about goggles, protective
clothing and respirators.

Cheers,
Sue

Thanks!
Kat

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In article ,
"Loki" wrote:

il Mon, 10 May 2004 09:20:03 -0500, Katra ha scritto:

Look, I know that pesticides are bad and work hard to develop my
biocontrol. Lizards, snakes, toads, spiders, assasin bugs and ladybird
beetles are all welcome in my garden and there are plenty of them.

But when it comes to rapid destruction by critters such as hornworms,
there is a time and a place for pesticides and sevin is the most benign
of them!

I try to hand pick them, but the little *******s are hard to spot!!!

And they do oh so much damage oh so quickly. :-(

Pans of beer work for slugs and snails. Dark Ale seems to attract far
more of them than cheap beer but that does not atttract hornworms. ;-)

I try, I really do, to stay as organic as possible, but sometimes it's
just not practical!

Would putting a cut open container around the plants reduce the
chewing? We have no such thing as that hornworm but I do find a
little plastic barrier slows some creatures down. Especially the darn
birds that like to break the stems. One can then use bait that's out
of reach of animals too.

Hornworm moths lay their eggs on the leaves. :-(
They don't eat the stems.

I try to hand pick the little buggers when possible, not the least
because it's so much fun to watch the ducks fight over them when I toss
them in with the poultry! Especially the larger ones. G

For birds, try some pinwheels, and those are decorative!
Owl decoys are also good and Wal-Mart has a nice supply of them right
now. Just move them weekly and make sure they cast a shadow.

K.

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Go out at night with a flashlight.
They are more active then and easier to spot, especially towards the top
of the plants!

Yeah, they will eat peppers if they are hungry and cannot get tomatoes!
Same family of plants.

K.


In article . net,
"Craig" wrote:

Hi Again all,

Hornworms eh.....

All the leaves were taken from the stem on every plant except 4 now. Also
today 2 Pepper plants were stripped. Do they eat those as well? I'll have to
check for the buggers tommorrow morning when there is some light. I guess
I'll try the sevin....

Thanks

Craig

"Katra" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Larry Blanchard wrote:

In article KatraMungBean-
,
says...
But when it comes to rapid destruction by critters such as hornworms,
there is a time and a place for pesticides and sevin is the most
benign
of them!

I thought malathion was less dangerous than Sevin? Seems to me
I remember reading it wasn't harmful to anything with a
functioning liver, as the liver converted it to something
harmless.

But Sevin is the best spray for cornsilks :-).

Malathion kills birds.
Sevin does not...

I lost some baby ducklings because my neighbor used Malathion for fire
ants and it washed into my yard during a rain. :-(

K.

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atra



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In article .net,
(Rez) wrote:

In article , Katra
wrote:
Look, I know that pesticides are bad and work hard to develop my
biocontrol. Lizards, snakes, toads, spiders, assasin bugs and ladybird
beetles are all welcome in my garden and there are plenty of them.

Speaking of lizards, couple days ago I saw a type I'd not seen before
(SoCal desert) -- it was blue, looked like an iguana (big thick head
and body, not a skinny "snake with legs" like most of our little
desert lizards) and kinda spiny all over.

Probably a western fence lizard???


But when it comes to rapid destruction by critters such as hornworms,
there is a time and a place for pesticides and sevin is the most benign
of them!

Pyrethrins work just as well, break down very fast, and are harmless
to warmblooded creatures even if ingested. And try insecticidal soap
(essentially a mix of dish soap to choke bugs, and canola oil to make
it stick to stuff). Hornworms curl up and die right before your eyes.
Only had to spray the tomatos 2x last year, and they responded to the
soap by growing into 12 foot long vines with LOTS of fruit.

Hmmmmm... I did used to use Pyrethrin in the henyard for flies but now
that I have my duck flock back, I no longer have a fly control problem.
;-) Never tried them much on the food plants. I worry about killing my
spiders tho'. :-(


I try to hand pick them, but the little *******s are hard to spot!!!

Try listening for them. When they're disturbed, they make this odd
mechanical noise. Then you can hone in on the sound and get 'em.

And they do oh so much damage oh so quickly. :-(

Not much less than a maniac with an axe

snicker Sounds like a story there?


~REZ~

Can anyone tell me how to control rats without poisoning?
Traps dont' work. Rats are too smart.

K.

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In article , Katra wrote:
In article .net,
Speaking of lizards, couple days ago I saw a type I'd not seen before
(SoCal desert) -- it was blue, looked like an iguana (big thick head
and body, not a skinny "snake with legs" like most of our little
desert lizards) and kinda spiny all over.
Probably a western fence lizard???

goes googling Nope, tho that looks like the little "snake with legs"
type we have tons of. This one was distinctly BLUE and I've never seen
one like it before. It had the bulky head of an iguana, and a thick
body to match, but had little lumpy spines kindof all over rather than
just one down the back like an iguana does. Very quick and agile, went
up the cinder block wall in a flash.

Pyrethrins work just as well, break down very fast, and are harmless
to warmblooded creatures even if ingested. And try insecticidal soap
(essentially a mix of dish soap to choke bugs, and canola oil to make
it stick to stuff). Hornworms curl up and die right before your eyes.
Only had to spray the tomatos 2x last year, and they responded to the
soap by growing into 12 foot long vines with LOTS of fruit.
Hmmmmm... I did used to use Pyrethrin in the henyard for flies but now
that I have my duck flock back, I no longer have a fly control problem.

Whereas here flies pretty much starve unless you provide something
that likes to make a mess in water, like ducks. g

;-) Never tried them much on the food plants. I worry about killing my
spiders tho'. :-(

Here the main spiders are black widow (both the passive and the leggy
aggressive types) and brown recluse. Our big worry is whether we can
get them all killed off before they take over, or eat us alive. My
tenant got bit by one in her bed yesterday. One reason I keep atropine
on hand is for spider bites. And if you're gone for 3 days, when you
come back the house will be chock full of black widow webs, to the
point that it looks like a movie spook house (no kidding). Hanging
dichlorvos no-pest strips helps esp. with the black widows. Doesn't
seem to bother the wolf spiders, either, tho we don't see many of
those anyway.

I've noticed a few golden garden spiders among the roses lately, but
they're not typically a desert spider. Probably only surviving here
because my place is sortof a little oasis

I try to hand pick them, but the little *******s are hard to spot!!!
Try listening for them. When they're disturbed, they make this odd
mechanical noise. Then you can hone in on the sound and get 'em.
And they do oh so much damage oh so quickly. :-(
Not much less than a maniac with an axe
snicker Sounds like a story there?

Well, I once did chop up a misbehaving typewriter ... tho after
fighting with it for several years (couldn't get parts, had to repair
it myself, which was always an adventure).

Can anyone tell me how to control rats without poisoning?
Traps dont' work. Rats are too smart.

Where I lived before, we got invaded by roof rats, which are so
prolific that traps and poison are a waste of effort. But every
morning I'd find 5 or 6 drowned in the dogs' water buckets, and
several more killed by one of my dogs (I breed Labradors). If there's
no other open water, you can lure 'em into big buckets or small
garbage cans with a foot or so of water in the bottom, deep enough
that they fall in when they try to drink, and enough water down there
that they can't get out so they eventually drown. (And no, I have
absolutely no sympathy for suffering rodents.

Or get a Jack Russell terrier and don't feed it, so it has to hunt.
They're good rat dogs and have no qualms about eating rats.

~REZ~

In article , Katra wrote:
For birds, try some pinwheels, and those are decorative!

I have a 99 cent pinwheel that's the "Slinky" brand, and it's been
sitting out here in the desert sun and high winds for about a year now
and still looks like new. It does help with the birds, tho doesn't do
anything to discourage kangaroo rats.

~REZ~

In article KatraMungBean-
,
says...
I also gave up on roses except for climbing blazes. Those do ok with no
fuss. I just had too many roses die. sigh

Do a google on "rugosa hybrid roses". They're shrub roses,
and you can't kill'em if you try. Look up F.J.Grootendorst,
Marie Bugnet (no, not Therese Bugnet), and Hansa.

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

In article ,
lid says...
Would putting a cut open container around the plants reduce the
chewing? We have no such thing as that hornworm but I do find a
little plastic barrier slows some creatures down. Especially the darn
birds that like to break the stems. One can then use bait that's out
of reach of animals too.

I use coffee cans half buried around my tomatoes. Seems to stop
both hornworms and cutworms, and I suspect slugs as well. Also
handy for watering - just fill the can :-).

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

Hi Katra,

Can anyone tell me how to control rats without poisoning?
Traps dont' work. Rats are too smart.

I get rats with rat glue on a piece of plywood very success upto an
extent that other wonder how this can be.

The area of glue apply are depend on the size of rat. Minimum length
should be two and a half of the rat length(not included tail). Minimum
width should be two and a half of the rat width. This is due to the
observe from me that when rat first step on the glue, it will be able
to make a jump. After the jump, if the front claw of rat are out of
the glue area, the rat will got chance to escape by crawlling with
front claw. Three side of plywood should have minimum one inch of
margin clear of glue for our thumb to hold when placing the plywood.
The side with glue should touch wall.

The plywood should put at rat path(where rat like to run through along
a wall). Or the rat jump from a place to reach another place, if the
rat jump to your table to eat your food, put the plywood on the table
at that spot.

Plywood should be lay flat, if it's slanted, the weight of rat will
slowly pull rat off the glue area.

The glue should chose the less smell type, or else you may need few
days to wait for the small disappear before get your first rat.

The glue should not be watery.

After removed the rat from glue, hold plywood slanted under water tap
to wash off rat *output*. g And put it slanted against a wall to
let water drip off.

Refill the part lack of glue that due to remove with rat together.

All this should be quite easy to understand.

The tough part are I don't know how to explain the way to apply glue.
If the glue does not apply correctly to the plywood, rat will be able
to escape quite easily.

A piece of plywood can get as much of about ten rat per night, this is
assume that you remove the rat when you heard it *sqeet* to free up
the space.

From my experience, as long as you put it at the right place, you can
glue bird, fly, snake, ... Almost anything that does not in the water.

Regards,
Wong

--
Latitude: 06.10N Longitude: 102.17E Altitude: 5m

In article ,
Larry Blanchard wrote:
In article ,
says...
Would putting a cut open container around the plants reduce the
chewing? We have no such thing as that hornworm but I do find a
little plastic barrier slows some creatures down. Especially the darn
birds that like to break the stems. One can then use bait that's out
of reach of animals too.

I use coffee cans half buried around my tomatoes. Seems to stop
both hornworms and cutworms, and I suspect slugs as well. Also
handy for watering - just fill the can :-).




Doesn't the can constrain the roots ? They can't expand
horizontally until they get below the edge of the can.

--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m

In article .net,
(Rez) wrote:

Can anyone tell me how to control rats without poisoning?
Traps dont' work. Rats are too smart.

Where I lived before, we got invaded by roof rats, which are so
prolific that traps and poison are a waste of effort. But every
morning I'd find 5 or 6 drowned in the dogs' water buckets, and
several more killed by one of my dogs (I breed Labradors). If there's
no other open water, you can lure 'em into big buckets or small
garbage cans with a foot or so of water in the bottom, deep enough
that they fall in when they try to drink, and enough water down there
that they can't get out so they eventually drown. (And no, I have
absolutely no sympathy for suffering rodents.

Or get a Jack Russell terrier and don't feed it, so it has to hunt.
They're good rat dogs and have no qualms about eating rats.

~REZ~

I've considered that...

Will they eat chickens?
Most of the rats are in the henyard which is why they are here.
Plenty of food. :-(

That is why a water trap would not work unless I dumped water containers
every night. We do find them drowned in the emu's water buckets now and
then!

Kat

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In article ,
"nswong" wrote:

Hi Katra,

Can anyone tell me how to control rats without poisoning?
Traps dont' work. Rats are too smart.

I get rats with rat glue on a piece of plywood very success upto an
extent that other wonder how this can be.

The area of glue apply are depend on the size of rat. Minimum length
should be two and a half of the rat length(not included tail). Minimum
width should be two and a half of the rat width. This is due to the
observe from me that when rat first step on the glue, it will be able
to make a jump. After the jump, if the front claw of rat are out of
the glue area, the rat will got chance to escape by crawlling with
front claw. Three side of plywood should have minimum one inch of
margin clear of glue for our thumb to hold when placing the plywood.
The side with glue should touch wall.

The plywood should put at rat path(where rat like to run through along
a wall). Or the rat jump from a place to reach another place, if the
rat jump to your table to eat your food, put the plywood on the table
at that spot.

Plywood should be lay flat, if it's slanted, the weight of rat will
slowly pull rat off the glue area.

The glue should chose the less smell type, or else you may need few
days to wait for the small disappear before get your first rat.

The glue should not be watery.

After removed the rat from glue, hold plywood slanted under water tap
to wash off rat *output*. g And put it slanted against a wall to
let water drip off.

Refill the part lack of glue that due to remove with rat together.

All this should be quite easy to understand.

The tough part are I don't know how to explain the way to apply glue.
If the glue does not apply correctly to the plywood, rat will be able
to escape quite easily.

A piece of plywood can get as much of about ten rat per night, this is
assume that you remove the rat when you heard it *sqeet* to free up
the space.

From my experience, as long as you put it at the right place, you can
glue bird, fly, snake, ... Almost anything that does not in the water.

Regards,
Wong

Time I think to just use Glue traps. ;-)
I normally hate those things, but I'm also not afraid to just kill the
rat when I find it in the glue trap so it won't suffer.

Trick will be in putting the traps where my pigeons won't get into them.
The rats do run up the trees out back!

I have some ideas...

Thanks!
K.

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"Katra" wrote in message
...
In article t,
"Craig" wrote:

Hello All,

I was a little disturbed to find half my tomato plants leaves eaten
off this
morning. Seems some sort of critter picked all the leaves clean off.
He ate
all the tomato leaves off the plants that we not in cages, I had
intended to
stake them. My neighbor had an opossum in their yard last year.
Maybe it was
another opossum? I've never had anything disturb my tomato plants
before. It
looks like he might have tried a pepper plant but didn't like them.
Garlic,
onions, radishes, green beans, and lettuce all we untouched. Any
suggestion
on how to save my remaining and replacement tomatoes?

Thanks in advance,

Craig
Staten Island, NY



Probably tomatoe hornworm...
They can be VERY rapidly destructive!

Find the critter, kill it, then most of the leaves should grow back.

You can spray the plant with liquid sevin. It biodegrades.

K.

If it's a big critter, sevin will be totally ineffective.

On the other hand, an electric fence will work well.


Ray