In article ,
"Marie Dodge" wrote:

"Isabella Woodhouse" wrote in message
...
In article , "Marie Dodge"
wrote:

"Isabella Woodhouse" wrote in message
...
In article , "Marie Dodge"
wrote:

"Isabella Woodhouse" wrote in message
.
..
Two of our gardens are still producing. The west garden
(squash, peppers, eggplants and tomatoes) went down to the
spider mites. Little is left. The string beans were harmed by
the organic insecticides (Organicide and Need Oil) and some
died.

I've seen Organocide (fish & sesame oils) used for blackspot &
powdery mildew on roses which don't seem to mind oily compounds
used on them even regularly. But I honestly don't know how well
beans, which are kind of fuzzy plants by nature, tolerate oil
applications.

Many of them didn't but nothing else was working people
recommended. Peppers don't like the oils either. I lost one
Pimento pepper plant. Others dropped a few leaves. The toms and
eggs didn't seem to mind though. Neem Oil was useless but
Organicide did finish off most of the white fly and a goodly
number of spider mites. The west garden plants were so severely
damaged by the insects, spiders and sprays I doubt any will make a
recovery and produce anything worth harvesting. Our first frost is
7 to 8 weeks away. The heat and drought isn't helping matters any.
I'm glad I have 3 gardens. Next year there will be 4. If one
fails there will be the others......

We haven't had to use any this year but we've used Neem oil in
the past and never had it damage anything.

It doesn't kill anything off either. It doesn't do what they
claim it does.

What specific claim was that?

That it stops nymphs from feeding and the the pests die out. I didn't
see where Neem did anything but lighten my wallet.

When a garden is as infested as you repeatedly said yours was, instant
results are not possible.

Neem oil is a better preventive than a cure. It does not usually
work by outright killing insects (like Malathion or Sevin);

Here again, I used them BOTH and neither made much difference.

Perhaps you would benefit from taking a course in gardening. The master
gardener course is excellent and is in most states through the Extension
Service or Horticulture divisions at State universities. The cost is
minimal and you would learn the whole dynamic of gardening, how to build
a good garden ecosystem that will improve each year, what harmful things
to avoid, and how to apply necessary and safe controls and fertilizers.

There is so much resistance or immunity in the pests today that many
insecticides are almost useless.

To the extent this is true, this is why natural controls are better over
the long haul. People managed to farm for thousands of years without
Malathion, Sevin, and the myriad of other toxic substances that are
harming both the environment and animals including humans. It takes
just a bit of finesse, some easily-obtainable knowledge, patience and
some time to work with nature instead of against it. Just some
reasonable effort has a huge payoff in the long run.

The man at Lowe's told me he's hearing more complaints from people
every year that the insecticides aren't working as they did in the
past.

And yet the same people keep dumping ever more dangerous poisons on
their plants. It's baffling.

it's more of a disruptor of the natural life cycle
of certain pests and helps to keep them from reproducing. It
certainly does not work instantly on crops that are already
severely compromised, like yours.

It didn't even slow down their reproduction or my crops would never
have gotten so infested. They were nowhere near that point when I
started spraying. I have a list of sprays used that had little or no
effect on the spider mites and whiteflies.

Like I said, your garden was too far gone by the time you tried the Neem
Oil and the Organocide. You had already used Malathion, Sevin and
heaven knows what else. You did not mention using any preventive
measures either. Has your soil been tested and amended? Have you
composted? Are your plants getting enough nutrition, water and sun to
resist pest attacks? Plants need a good deal more than nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium. Did you mulch? Do you have an environment
that is conducive to birds and insects that prey on garden pests? I
can't imagine the latter is true since you're using harmful poisons.

As with other things in life, there are rarely quick and dirty
solutions. Any decent gardener will tell you that gardening is a great
deal more than putting a few seeds in the ground and spraying when the
plants fail to thrive.

If I hadn't wasted weeks with organic pesticides that didn't work
I wouldn't have lost the garden. By the time I became convinced
Neem Oil and Rotenone were useless it was really too late.

I read your posts in rec.gardens.edible where numbers of people
gave you lots of prudent suggestions, most of which you rejected,
sometimes with antagonism toward so-called organic measures.

Which ideas did I reject?

You've complained at almost every suggestion. I'd call that a
rejection.

You were dosing your severely compromised plants with at least four
or five different things including some extremely toxic poisons
that are known to kill a large number of different helpful insect
species.

If any helpful insect species were in the garden before I started
spraying the pests would never have gotten to such populations they
killed the plants. Where were all these helpful species when the
pests first showed up?

Dead from your use of Malathion, Sevin and, likely, a host of other
poisons you've been using for many years.

And yet you seem so certain
that it was the organic methods which ruined your garden and not
the spider mites, white fly, squash vine borers, or anything else.

Think again........ it was the FAILURE of the organic methods that
allowed the insect population to reach such deadly numbers.

Hornswoggle. Your Sevin and Malathion didn't seem to work either but
you're not blaming it on them. Could it be because you were
fundamentally antagonistic, from the start, to more natural or organic
methods?

No method, including organic methods, can work instantaneously in an
already compromised, intensely poisoned environment such as yours
appears to be. They take time and care as I've already indicated. You
want it as easy as waving a spray wand and when that fails, you blame it
on the product. That is not gardening, Marie. It is a fantasy.

...Organicide was the last thing on the list to try. It smells
terrible and doesn't pour well. It goes everywhere when you try
and pour it, adding to the stink. And that is also wasteful.

Organocide is supposed to be applied as a spray. It stinks because
it has fish oil in it. If you have difficulty with that smell, I'd
recommend against ever using blood meal.

I know it's a spray and I know it contains fish oil. I can read the
directions on the bottle. I'm not illiterate. The blood meal sold
here is odorless but I can no longer afford to buy it or bone meal.
When what I have is gone, that's it. Pure organic is no longer for
those of moderate income.

Is that what you call what you did? Buy a couple of sprays? That's
"pure organic"?

[...]
One problem with using mainstream insecticides like the Sevin
and Malathion you previously noted is that they are broad
spectrum, extremely toxic, and also kill predators which feast
on some of the pests you mentioned.

Apparently there were no predator insects to feed on them or they
wouldn't have reached the numbers they did that stopped production
dead in it's tracks, turning the plants into those pics you saw.
That was the damage from the WFs and SMs, not the insecticides.

And how many years have you been using Malathion, Sevin, and the
like?

Since THIS SPRING since we never had this kind of infestation before.
Next you'll claim these sprays only kill the beneficial.

Don't be silly. I'm not the one making ridiculous claims. You are.
Malathion and Sevin are well known poisons. It's a fact that they are
broad spectrum pesticides. Look it up. Reading won't hurt you, I
promise. Despite your pleas for help in multiple forums, you've been
antagonistic to almost any suggestion. So, if the poisons are the way
to go and work so well, then why are you complaining?

Stop trying to blame the sprays. The west garden laid fallow for 2
years besides it never seeing sprays in the past.

Once the natural balance is destroyed, it can take several years
to restore it. I sure hope you can resolve some of these issues
and have more fun with your gardens.

Apparently there was no natural balance to start with - see
above.

I recall you saying you've had this property for over 20 years.

And THAT has what to do with he lack of beneficial insects?

Your property, Marie, is not independent of your gardens. They are all
part of the same ecosystem. You've had 20 years to at least allow the
development of an healthy ecosystem. Based on what you've said in
various posts, had you left it alone for twenty years, it would likely
have been far better off than it is with whatever you've done to it.
You've been rather blunt with me so I'm being equally candid with you.

No one is forcing you to garden organically or use any particular method
at all. You asked for help--- complained incessantly in
rec.gardens.edible for months--- but you seemed antagonistic to all the
suggestions you received. You even lashed out at people who gave you
wise advice. You're upset because you bought a couple of so-called
organic products and they did not instantaneously resolve your very
severe problems. So you blame all your gardening failures on them
alone. "Organic" and "natural" are clearly members of your axis of
evil.

Your entire scenario is not only illogical. It is preposterous.

My last piece of advice is to stop all the whinging at people who try to
help you and give a little more time learning.

Isabella
--
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust"
-T.S. Eliot