Don't take the risk. Don't use pesticides. And there are several reasons I
would advise this.

1.Monsanto/Bayer should not be trusted to be honest with the public.
They have a long history of being misleading to down right lying,
to the public, for their own commercial benefit. They don't care about your
health

2. Why bother growing your own vegetables with pesticides. You can buy
vegetables with pesticides on them in the supermarket.

3. Pesticides kill both pests and pest predators . Thus you are probably
killing the very insects/reptiles that can assist you eliminate them, and
they wont charge you for it.

4 Using pesticides set you on a never ending cycle of being reliant on the
chemical companies.
When you can minimise to eradicate them with encouraging their predators, a
little care and by being pest savvy.

Their are several key issues that you should address when deciding to use
natural methods of controlling pests:
A good book to outline all these issues and how to undertake a chemical free
veggie patch is : Natural Control of Garden Pests, by Jackie French.
However, I'm sure google has a wealth of information.

Some very simple points anyone can undertake without being an expert are :

Be aware of how pests find plants : It is either through sight or smell.
By mixing plants together in a non-uniform manner you make it more difficult
for pests to locate plants.
Most monocultures of any variety need some form of best control. Mix the
vegies up

Introduce a pond and frogs. Frogs love pests.
If you can get a duck, you will solve all your snail problems.

Understand that pests will be more likely to attack the weak plants. With
good soil/conditions/the right plant for the right area, you will be less
likely to encounter pests.

If you have to use pesticide because it is an introduced pest attacking your
plants, that has no natural predator in your region,
use home made/natural pesticides such as garlic spray or milk and warm water
(depends on the pest/just two examples)
This way you won't be taking any risk in eating poison. which is exactly
what pesticide is.

Personally :
I have to spray my pear and plum trees with home made pyrethrum spray or
throw woodfire ash on them on a regular basis,
as Victoria Australia has the pest 'cherry/plum slug'. An introduced pest
with no natural predator. This is the only spray I use on all my
trees/vegetables.

In the corner of my square garden beds I plant what I call the 'sacrifice'
plants as I am unable to keep ducks. This is usually a brassica of some
kind, which snails love.
The snails attack this plant as they come up from the sides of the beds and
leave the other brassica in the middle of the bed alone. A small price to
pay for pesticide free food.

Kirsty

"Nick Apostolakis" wrote in message
...
hello

i was wondering about the answer to a question and i would like to hear
your opinion.


lets say that we have a vegetable that is sprayed with a pesticide.
the pesticide says that after 15 days it gets degraded to non toxic
elements.

i think that it is a common case among the various pesticides and
fungucides.

if i pick up a vegetable 2 days before the pesticide deadline finishes
and store it in a refigerator is the pesticide going to dissolve as if
the vegetable was on the plant?

the point of my question is that i do not know what exactly the term
degrade means for the various agro chemicals.

it could mean that it is unstable anyway and disolves by its own no
matter where the vegetable is stored

or it could mean that it is dissolved by some biological or physical
factors (e.g heat or some bacteria) etc

what is your opinion and practice about this?

thank you
--



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Nick Apostolakis
e-mail:
Web Site: http://agriroot.aua.gr/~nickapos
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