How to get rid of pests in your garden

These are tips on how to get rid of pests in your garden. I got them from this video here.

Note: I edited my notes from the video as best as I could. I don’t have time to make it perfect. The people’s comments I didn’t edit.

Brasica is the purple cabbage
First you have to identify what pest is causing the problem.
Look at the patterns in the holes.
It’s the cabbage worm.
He identifies the different life cycles & stages of the cabbage worm.
He knows they come out early because he can see the cabbage white butterflies which is the adult stage of that worm.
The butterflies fly around and lay their larva on the leaves. Also on broccoli, and then the larva hatches and eats the leaves.
Use a spray that is specific to that one thing so you aren’t harming anything else.
His first organic spray – BT – Bacillus thuringiensis – made from unatural bacterial found in the soil.
If you aren’t sure what insect it is, you can make a broad spectrum spray with garlic that you can make at home.
10-15 cloves. Garlic has a compound in it called Allicin and it helps to confuse & repel some insects. It also has sulfur in it which is a natural anti fungal which also helps with some fungal issues.
Remove the peel
Finely chop as much as possible
Get a jar & add a pint of mineral oil. The oil can kill the larva/eggs by depleting their oxygen. It also allows it to cover the garlic mixture more evenly.
After adding in the garlic, let it sit for 24 hrs.
Then strain the garlic out of it
Then add that to several liters of water.
Then because it doesn’t mix (oil & water) you add dish soap.
Another decent spray is dishwashing liquid & water just like oil alone is a decent spray
Then mix it rigorously & wait 30 secs to see how much of the oil floats to the top. If a lot of the oil is at the top, put in more dishwashing liquid & shake again.
This is a weaker solution.
If you want much stronger, buy 100% cold pressed neem oil.
Neem oil has Azadirachta in it. The neem sprays in the store don’t have that in there.
It doesn’t harm bees unless you spray them directly.
Whenever you are using a spray, you need to use it on a control section of 1 or 2 plants. This way you can see if something goes wrong with those 2 plants.
Never spray on the hottest (mid day) parts of the days. You can spray in the morning, but he likes spraying at night when all of the beneficials have gone in. I don’t know what beneficials are.
Then he puts it into his sprayer.
And with the brascus he is going to spray the BT later.
Another way he stops insects is by putting an insect barrier net over the raised bed.
He even put it up one day when it was really windy so it wouldn’t harm the plants.
Another protection is fencing. He uses it for protection as well as food.
Birds used to get to his peas until he started putting the netting up.
Bring other more stronger insects in your food forest. He went into the forest & found a praying mantus nest (11:59) & brought 4-5 back with him & now they lay their nests in his garden & get rid of the other pests.
He also brought in some lady bugs, but he’s not sure they helped, but it balances things out because he’s in a suburban setting.
Variety of plants.
The healthier the plants, the less pest issues.
When it comes to perennials and fruit trees, variety is even more crucial.
For his strawberries he paints river rocks red & then when they start to bloom out, he puts them out so the birds peck at the rocks, see nothing is coming out & they never come back.
Companion planting like he plants tomatoes & in between each row he plants garlic

Other people’s comments:

An awesome trick for white cabbage moths is to make up some fake cabbage moths and pin them next to your cabbages. They don’t lay eggs if there is already a moth there.
There are templates you can download and print and pin to your leaves. Also, there are actual plastic decoys you can buy.
If you use cardboard, just don’t get it wet. lol I have a ceramic decor that looks like a moth and that one is perfect. The cabbage moths don’t land there.
You can use milk jugs orange jugs and cut out a section draw your moth with a sharpie and trim off the edges and sitck it on a bamboo skewer. Its not a 100% solution but it sure helps. I saved my cabbages from those caterpillars and hoping for a big head to harvest. You will need 2-3 dummies per plant
Dr Bonner’s Peppermint Oil Organic soap, 3 tbsp in one gallon water, my favorite DIY spray right now. Really helping me with the pesky spider mites. And super quick and easy to make in a gallon sprayer.
rosemary essential oil to that and you have my ‘Super Stealth Anti Aphid and Cabbage Moth Solution.’ The rosemary has made a MASSIVE difference this year.
I plant green onions around ALL my gardens. Just pick off the tip of a leaf and drop it. Keeps out deer, rabbits, moles, voles (part of the rodent family, voles are similar in appearance to mice and moles. They mainly eat plants, roots, and stems but occasionally feed on meat, like tiny insects or animal remains when food is scarce.)The tip of the green growth. Stick to the same one unless you have more than 2, but always leave one untouched.
Growing alliums, onions and garlic
deer hate high scented plants like lavender and marigolds. Line your garden area with some (or just the area the deer enter from if it’s contained) and they’ll be discouraged from visiting your crops. Especially lavender, as the scent sticks to their fur and irritates them.
I welcome yellow jacket wasps. They are one of the most efficient predators in my garden. I’m just really careful to make sure they’re not building any nests in my yard by checking the ground for small holes every day. As long as you don’t bother them and they don’t have a nest in your yard, they are too busy to be bothered with you.
Starting with white oil – basically 2 parts oil (I use rice bran oil as it’s cheap and always in the pantry) 1 part dish soap. Great for combating scale, aphids, leaf miner etc. For the broad spectrum spray, you might want to add some dried chilli into the mix too as it’s a decent deterrent to some pests. Or make 2 different sprays and rotate them as needed.
I gave my mother some cabbage and marigold seedlings starts that I grew and she planted them next to each other and she said that was the first time she ever had cabbage that was bug free and look that nice. I told her it was probably from the marigolds.
Don’t use a bug zapper – they destroy a lot of beneficial insects too. They really are not good to use.
Another good resource I use are beneficial nematodes. They work great for getting rid of the pests we don’t want.
Nematodes are the most numerous multicellular animals on earth. A handful of soil will contain thousands of the microscopic worms, many of them parasites of insects, plants or animals. Free-living species are abundant, including nematodes that feed on bacteria, fungi, and other nematodes
unfortunately, praying mantises eat not only pests, but also beneficial insects!
If anyone reading this has problems with squash bugs, plant petunias at the base of your squash and it works wonders.\
Another good way to deal with those is to plant much later than normal. By the time you plant, the life cycle of the squash bug is passed the point where it will harm the plants.
you can go out at night with a flashlight and pick off snails, slugs, and earwigs.
organic gardening books recommend all-natural Castille soap like Dr. Bonners. I’m cheap, so I use Murphy Oil Soap, which is natural, OMRI compliant, and 1/4 the price. Use just a tiny bit, like a few drops at a time, enough to hold the oil in suspension, because soaps can harm soil biology if over-applied.
King Stropharia/ red cap mushrooms are native to the NE US and the mycelium kills nematodes by strangling them and the fruit (mushroom) is edible. Earth worms also love the mycelium and we all know how great worms are in the garden. Tip: if you want to continue to harvest mushrooms, rotate them.
I’ve been trying to share my spray with as many folks as possible because it’s totally eclipsed anything I’ve used against cabbage moth destruction. Dr Bohners peppermint liquid castille + rosemary essential oil. I’m pretty sure it’s the rosemary that is making the moths avoid all of my lush leafy greens this year. They’re not even trying on my actual brassicas, it’s insane.
I still have issues with powdery mildew with my pumpkins. – A. In my experience drops in temperature, sunlight, and airflow create a more habitable environment for PM, so put them in the warmest sunniest spot and grow them vertically on a trellis for maximum airflow. Chop of any foliage close to the ground because it will always start there first
Another organic pest control I learned more than 30 years ago deals with tomato hornworms. Maybe you’ve heard of this, but in any case here it is: Whenever you see a tomato hornworm, pick it off the plant and put it into a jar with lid on. Once you gather a few of them, smash them up in the jar and let them ‘rot’ for approx a week. At the end of the ‘rotting’ period, add water and spray this mixture on the tomato plants. Any tomato hornworms that encounter it will be repelled. Yucky to do, but it 100% works! lol!
use grind eggs shells to get rid of worms and insects into your plants. Just scatter grind eggs shells around the plants and that it.
Placing a rubber snake where you don’t want birds to attack your plants will keep them away.
I grow my lettuce in recycled milk containers on the fence because slugs eat them every single year otherwise.
I have used neem oil, which helps more with white fly and mites.
I like the garlic between the tomatoes.I have used basil and marigolds before. I have used chives because I use them a lot in cooking. Anything thats pungent like oregano or sacrifice a dill plant
bird baths
With B.t. keep in mind you want to reapply if it rains or roughly every 3 days in intense sunlight, at minimum once/week due to UV exposure killing the bacteria. The mineral oil is really iffy to me, I don’t care how refined it is I think there are better options for smothering, neem is one, with the added benefit/downside of the azadirachtin, however I would just use an insecticidal soap if I was going to go the pure smothering route. One thing I can definitely say no to is the dishwashing “soap” which is actually detergent, it’s not a true “soap” and there can be plenty of nasty stuff in there you don’t want on your plants; it can be antibacterial meaning you can’t mix it with products like B.t. and Spinosad; plus as a spreader/sticker/surfactant/wetting agent it doesn’t work very well… check out yucca powder instead 🙂 I used to use the RAW brand and it worked great and very efficiently! Info on yucca from the yucca extract product “Hygeia’s Hydration” by Nectar For The Gods: This multipurpose supplement has many jobs in the garden. Yucca shidigera is rich in saponins, which aid in the absorption of nutrients in the soil. Saponins prevent the runoff of nutrients from the medium, allowing more nutrition to be consumed by microbes and plants alike. Hygeia also works well as a natural wetting agent for foliar sprays and will not build up on your plants’ stomata.
ALSO, every wood worker knows that mineral oil is the most common FOOD SAFE oil to treat cutting boards YOU EAT OFF IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS. That is because unlike vegetable or olive oil, it won’t go rancid with time. Whether it is or isn’t some component of “petriol” is completely irrelevant. You are chemically illiterate. Chlorine gas is pretty dangerous. But chlorine is half the volume of table salt. Botulinum toxin is completely organic. And a tea spoon can kill a city worth of ppl. And the same ppl who “eat organic” inject it in their face for the oh-so-important consideration of aesthetics. Synthetic vs artificial is one of the least relevant aspects of production, nutrition, etc. Period.
with that said, i prefer natural supplies/materials in almost all applications (garden, building, etc). And that’s for variety of reasons: self sufficiency instead of reliance on industrial manufacture (ex. use young bamboo for stakes instead of metal cage); more complete/diverse nutrient or biochemical contents (ex. a herb may be stronger when the active ingredient is isolated and manufactured BUT there may be a variety of complimentary compounds in its original form that aid in its affect on body…absorption, metabolism, transport or function); even predictability (while organic compounds can be JUST AS DANGEROUS as synthetic, and OFTEN LESS EFFECTIVE in singular task, they have very desirable benefit of NOT INTRODUCING NEW THINGS to garden (if you use area specific treatments ie. Local pests, sprays consisting of components from garden). And while this isn’t inherently good or bad, at least it’s more predictable… Who knows what some currently beneficial chemical will do in long term once it becomes permanent in soil and therefore environment.
I use marigolds in the garden to keep aphids and mosquitoes away
I mostly use neem oil for soil gnats. I live in the desert so moist soil is an oasis for them.
Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint is great, about 1 TBSP per quart of water, you can add Rosemary essential oil to this for extra kick as well, against certain pests I throw in a TBSP of ground Cayenne pepper, stir and let it soak in then strain it. Definitely wear gloves and eye/face protection like a mask, you don’t want to breathe it in/get it on your skin/eyes
Another trick is stale beer. Keeps the slugs from eating the plants
my friend told me for the past few years she has been spraying sea water on her cabbages. they never get attacked at all. after every rain she said. she told me you can also use house hold sea salt with water. she did it for the slugs but the cabbage moths dont even bother them.
I started creating wildflower beds and planting alot of dill it attracts preatory insects
I started planting nasturtiums as a “trap plant” this year. The aphids love the nasturtiums and flock to it instead of my veggies. I hose it down almost every day, and just clip off any really-infested parts of the nasturtiums. When it’s not infected with aphids, the bees love the flowers, which are also edible. Also, I’ll go out after dark, after the sprinklers have run, with a flashlight, and hunt for snails. That’s my garden’s biggest problem. I pluck them off the plants with my fingers and drown them.If I had chickens, I’d feed them to the chickens.
Try using beer traps,.. and yes they do work
Mix the Neem oil soap and your other oil together. Stir up until well blended then add to the water and shake, SURPRISE. You will find it stays blended well in the water longer while you are applying it.
For slugs, I’ve found copper tape around the raised bed works much better than any trap. I’ve seen them try to get up, come across the tape, and turn around. Now I only find a few on my nightly hunts, instead of dozens.
Build a large PVC pyramid. The vortexing energy should improve your plant’s health and reduce pests.
I use deer netting around the base of my plants it has kept the squirrels and chipmunks from digging up my plants
my grandma used gulf balls in the chicken nests to get the chickens trained to not eat the eggs
yeah, it killed them. The soap strips the wax off the leaves and caused it to dehydrate, kinda like what it does to ants. I used dawn on one, and some dr. Bronner’s another time.

I hope this helps you. I know things are tough because the evils are using their weather weapons that is destroying the season cycles and Mother Earth.

The only way to win this war is with US!

People can shirk their responsibility in all of this which is just cowardice, but every day you can always choose to REALLY wake UP to Help Save Yourself, Humanity, and our Mother Earth.

Truth, Spirituality (nothing to do with the psyop known a religion), shedding your childhood trauma, becoming a mature adult, and then taking responsibility for yourself HAS to be done.

I know it’s hard because the evils control us, but it HAS to be done. If we all start to do it, this war WILL BE OVER. We have the POWER to stop them, but you have to play your part.

The key is learning who you are with everything else stripped away. Truly look in the mirror.

Learn how to love and respect yourself and then help others. If we all help one another, that’s sharing the workload.

Build alternative communities based on FREEDOM and Truth. Do it together outside of the evils’ mafia governments. It’s the ONLY way.

https://ourfreesociety.com/community

It’s our negative energy they feed off of. So long as we aren’t United and Strong, they can control us. We need to be United and Strong and NOT just accept what is going on. This is NOT a movie!!!

Both parts have to be done AND people have to STOP WORSHIPING MONEY.

The evils use money as a WEAPON. Money shouldn’t be used to judge others by their WORTH. Anyone who thinks this way is controlled by the evils and is harming Humanity. Yes we need it in THEIR system, so that’s why you need to break FREE from their evil MATRIX.

This war can ONLY BE WON BY US, not some deity or Human. That’s where the psyop religion comes in – SALVATIONISM.

They want you to NEVER grow up and fight them. They want you waiting for someone ELSE to save you so they have free reign to kill us.

Here’s my alternative therapy page. I hope you read and bookmark it. https://ourfreesociety.com/alternative-therapy-courses/

There’s NO SHAME in admitting you have issues. WE ALL DO.

It’s when you don’t care and don’t work to rid yourself of them (this doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a work in progress) that I have a problem with that because you refusing to not do the work affects ALL of us, not just YOU.

With tough Love

Michelle
The Our Free Society Warrior Alliance
I hope you learned something.

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The definition of insanity is blind obedience.

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