In article , lgb
wrote:

In article ,
says...
Anyone older than 15 who is not aware of the dangers of pesticides should
not be allowed to leave their bedroom. Ever.


I'm aware of the dangers inherent in driving my car or riding my
motorcycle, too. That doesn't stop me from doing so. Nor of having an
almost perfect driving record for 55 years (a couple of speeding
tickets).

Your attitude strikes me as fanatical. There are times when pesticides
are called for. And different compounds used have greatly varying
toxicities.

For example, Sevin, which is quite toxic, is the only thing I've found
that will knock out elm beetle grubs before they deleaf my elm trees. I
wear coveralls and a respirator when I use it, usually once a year.

Malathion, OTOH, is relatively inoucous and I use it to kill thrips and
aphids on my rose bushes and Japanese honeysuckle with short sleeves, no
gloves, and no respirator.

I realize this won't convince you, but I wanted to make others aware
that not all of us are environmental fanatics or, on the other side,
reckless rednecks who spray evrything in sight with the deadliest stuff
we can find. So that's all I'm going to say on the subject.

What convinces me is stories such as you tell of always needing so always
using all sorts of toxins for all sorts of garden problems. i never use
them, never need them. My elms are healthy, the roses are healthy, the
honeysuckles are healthy, never been assaulted by thrips, have gotten rid
of aphids with nothing more than a couple drops of dishwashing soap in a
gallon of water, sometimes just with the water. Why is that my garden does
fabulously & never requires ME to get a respirator, moon suit, & five
kinds of toxins to spray about? God loves me but hates you? I'm lucky,
you're not? Or are we both experiencing the results of our own actions?

It's quite clear that chemical dependency breeds chemical dependency by
throwing gardens completely out of balance. The longer one gardens
organically, the better that semblance of natural balance that could never
be sustained in a soup of recurring toxic assaults.

Chemical-dependent gardens are perpetually stressed from being perpetually
out of wack. Toxins have killed so many beneficial insects & soil
microorganisms & so weakened the plantlife that all such a gardener can
do is try to patch over the damage with the same array of toxins that
caused the damage.

Thrips tend to be a greater problem where beneficial insects have been
removed from the environment -- predator insects are always slower to
return than are pests, so pests return rapidly & further toxification is
undertaken before even the slightest semblance of balance can be restored.


And anyone who thinks they need malathion for aphids just isn't thinking
about these things rationally; it's like if an itchy toe could be fixed by
scratching it for a couple seconds, & you decide to bang on it with a
sledgehammer as the best line of defense. I have to assume the other
chemical decisions were as unsoundly based, because the rational you've
dismissed as radical. You posit a worst-case scenario of thrips stripping
elms, yet you can't kill elm thrips without also killing a whole array of
beneficial insects thus making the environment MORE inviting to thrips for
the next cycle. The LASTING method of thrip control is with predatory
mites, soil mites, lady beetles, & nematodes -- but everytime you toxify
the environment instead, you destroy a dozen beneficial components of the
environment sledgehammering the one harmful pest, thus causing the
problems to escalate year by year rather than diminish.

It's amazing to me that people in love with their toxic methods call those
of us who don't use toxins "radical," yet you keep getting pests in your
garden while I do not. If there were legitimately a problem in my garden
that only synthetic toxins had any chance of taking care of, I would
consider that option, but I've gardened since the 1960s & over time even
the "exceptions" I once thought were necessary were not exceptions at all.
An organically balanced garden is a healthy garden. A chemical-dependent
garden is not. It sometimes takes more patience with organic methods -- in
three years it is possible by biological means to get rid of Japanese
beetles once & for all, but people who prefer toxins will be using them
forever annually patching over a problem that will never cease.

To me you sound like the radical, not because you require toxins so much
as you require blinders. You believe you can't get rid of aphids without
synthetic pesticides, so why is that I can do so very easily. You have
harmful pests that you believe cannot be controlled without harsh
pesticides, but I have so few harmful pests that their damage, if any, is
never visible. You have to spray your shrubs & trees because they are
attacked by pests & disease, but mine are neither diseased nor infested
though I do not spray even with organically approved pesticides let alone
the nastiest stuff you rely on. Why would your garden be so doomed without
annual applications of sundry toxins, but mine thrives without them? I
don't believe I'm just lucky & you're cursed by God; their are rational
reasons for my not having the problems that afflict your garden, & those
reasons are methological.

You've made an emotional or political decision (rather than a reasoned or
scientific one) to dismiss effective methods as "radical" if they do not
require toxins. And so yhou put on your moonsuit & respirator to take care
of problems that keep recurring because of your actions. That's very much
like banging your head into a wall & when you discover your head is
injured, bang it a second, third, & fourth time, never realizing the
problems are returning because of, not in spite of, your actions.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
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"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson