I use a strong water spray on my plants every day. It doesn't get off
all the bugs.

The number one pest I have is Japanese Beetles. I've tried spraying
them, picking them off, etc. They eat new buds, they eat the leaves,
it's horrible. I have four Japanese Beetle traps around my yard. These
are the plastic traps that hold about 10x more beetles than the bags.
Every three days, each trap is filled to the top. It's THAT bad.

I would put milky spore down, however, I can't. I live in a condo
community. They allow us to plant containers and even our own flowers
in some spots.

I wrote the association about putting milky spore down. Don't know if
it will do any good.

I'm not growing vegetables, only flowers. I'm only spraying the
containers in my condo.

As for vegetables, with the amount of bugs I get, I can't see how a
farmer could grow a crop without some form of pesticide to stop the
destruction. For example, most bananas come from Mexico/South America.
There, a naturally growing bunch of bananas gets clotted with insects,
so in order to protect it, they have to cover each bunch with an
insecticide soaked plastic bag.

I didn't notice that the group here was anti-pesticide. I apologize
and will refrain from posting more info about it.


Frogleg wrote:

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 00:44:50 -0400, Pelvis Popcan
wrote:

I have been spraying my ornamental flowers every 14 days starting in
June with Carbaryl (Sevin).

Why?

I was able to kill them off using Raid House and Garden spray.

Terrific

I have decided to switch from Carbaryl to Esfenvalerate (Ortho Bug Be
Gone Concentrate).

Have you not noticed that this newsgroup is heavily weighted toward
organic practices, and even those of use who occasionally use
something from a commercial can/box/bag must apologize profusely?

Sevin is an indescriminate killer that affects bees and butterflies
(hope you weren't trying to grow any veg crops). Aphids are
traditionally and easily washed away with water spray, or at worst,
water and detergent. Bug-B-Gon kills "over 75 insect types on
contact." That is, it'll kill everything that's hit by the spray, and
probably not do a thing for preventing further infestations.

I have recently posted a rant about anti-"chemical" philosophies, but
geez -- spraying Sevin on everything for no particular reason? And
following up with Raid and Bug-B-Gon? That's waay too much for even my
"non-organic" views.