Has such bad aphids last year. Three different types (red, green, white) on my plants all at once. It was bad, I was considering pesticides for first time. Then I saw some green worms on them too and got so mad. But my plants suddenly got better, and there were no signs of the leaves being eaten. After some research, I realized they were the larvae of the hoverfly. They completely decimated the aphid population in about 2 weeks. I couldn’t find any! They pupated and became a huge swarm that covered my plants, laying the next gen. To this day, I have never seen such a huge population in hoverflies in my garden and they helped me so much I am glad I waited. I just hope they return again this year! They seemed to be attracted to the “honey” you mentioned that aphids leave, my plants were sticky with it! Even the wasps came by to feed on it 🥲 I am a new gardener (only 5 yrs) so I keep discovering new things every year
Mosquito dunks come in granular form in a shaker container. I simply sprinkle it in my seed starting mix. No more problems. The dunks are great in ponds & bird baths.
The best brand I've found is literally just called Mosquito Bits. XD I'm reluctant to soak them according to the instructions, because I've found the smell doesn't come out of my watering containers, but sprinkling them on top of the soil has worked just as well for me.
You can see the eggs of the cabbage worms and the leaf miners on the undersides of leaves. Instead of using any kind of pesticide, you can just find the eggs and rub them off with your finger. Then cover your vulnerable plants (brassicas, beets, kale, swiss chard, spinach) with fine mesh bug netting for gardens so the moths can't get in to lay their eggs anymore.
I've actually encountered at least 5 of these pests in my garden and I can tell you the worst one for me has nothing to do with the actual plant, but the fact that the Fungus Gnats love to attack your face. Nose, eyes, mouth, all got flew into by this super annoying pest! 😤 Wish I knew this info beforehand.
This is such a valuable video for me. I have been gardening for years and have been getting crushed by pests in San Diego. I am so happy to have some solutions!!! Thank you! Hopefully now I can eat some of my harvest 😅
Diatomaceous earth is great sprinkled at the base of your plants to help with cutworms. And if you spray anything, even the organic stuff, don’t do it in the morning when pollinators are doing their thing. Afternoon and evening is best
As a super new gardener I greatly appreciate you both sharing your wealth of knowledge with us, especially for free. My only request is could you please write out the names of the products you recommend? Whether on screen or in the description box. Sometimes it's hard to make out what the name is that's being said and I don't want to get it wrong. Thank you!
I did a container garden of Sunflower and Osteospermum a.k.a African daisy. Looks so pretty and the Sunflower is supposed to attract bees, earth worms and ladybugs. Ladybugs are supposed to eat Aphids. I thought I learned about Sunflower benefits from this channel. You all are so helpful. Thank you for your videos.
The most abundant pest around here is the earwig. I don't think I've ever seen one fly; but, they sure can climb. Last year, one of the other gardeners suggested that I sink a small cup, like a yogurt cup into the soil and fill it with soy sauce. The earwigs seem to be attracted to the scent of the soy sauce. I tried it and sure enough, the next time I went to the garden, there were earwigs floating in the soy sauce.
@@shyviolets42But they also eat blossoms! Or at least they are this year in the garden I share with my Mom. They're everywhere and it's been so frustrating trying to kill them off, because it's too dry for aphids so far this year and we're not watering beyond the raised garden beds.
Tried this (a bit of any kitchen oil mixed with a bit of soy source, and I re-use sauce/salsa take-put containers), and yeah….works great, and for me, catches both ear wigs and moisture knats.
Highly informative, excellent graphics and examples, concise and the use of two persons to keep it entertaining. Love these videos! Keep on being a great source of help for gardeners. Greetings from Berlin, Germany
Mosquito dunks along with sticky traps works amazingly well for indoor and greenhouse gardening. I've tried nematodes and traps but couldn't completely disrupt the lifecycle. Once I started treating full strength BT once a week all my gnat problems disappeared!
100% Nothing else was anywhere close to as effective as BT. I buy bags of the mosquito bits and use large tea bags to soak soak them in water, add a little liquid fertilizer, and my indoor plants are in happy town. A Neem spray for the foliage helps keep the adults from landing on leaves since they seem to hate it. Add on the yellow sticky traps, and you can keep those suckers controlled. Here in PNW, I've accepted that I will never be rid of them, but I can definitely keep them at bay. The suckers love spreading disease to every freaking plant outside and inside my house.
I remember my art teacher getting us to catch ladybugs for her garden she said keeping a healthy population of them was great for dealing with aphids because they're basically their favorite food.🤷 But a neat trick if so.☺️
Sun dew carnivorous plants are fatally attractive to fungus gnats. I worked in an open floor wide cube farm where every plant had fungus gnats. One person brought in one sun dew and all the gnats were gone overnight and never came back. I'd like to see you experiment with one, especially in a confined space like a green house.
Sundews are great for that. Some petunias have similar sticky leaves and trap insects, and then their bodies get washed away into the soil when it rains! So cool.
yes and no...fungas gnats can still land on the non carnivorous part of the sundew and still lay eggs. also he has to hope that the fungus gnats focus on the sundews and not the other garden plants
Found this out by accident. I hung a suet block over some aphid infested roses in the morning before going to work. Chickadees, sparrows and bushtits were common visitors at the suet feeder. When I came home at the end of the work day I went out to spray a home-brew insecticide on the roses. There was no trace of aphids on the roses. I now routinely use this practice for aphid control.
I've had great success eliminating cutworms with diatamaceous earth. I just sprinkle it on the row where I just planted either seeds or plants, and have never had a problem with cut worms after that.
Calendula is an amazing trap crop for aphids, I put Calendula by all my starts and the aphids go straight to those flowers and leave my starts alone 👍 I also use ladybugs and preying mantis in my greenhouse to keep the populations down.
I put out ant traps that have jelled boric acid powder in them after I hose down the plant with water to knock off existing aphids. They need the ants to herd them there. With the ants killing themselves feasting on the ant traps that are for sale with the jelled boric acid powder, the problem with aphids is over. However continuing the ant traps is necessary and they last a long time.
OMG...all these years I've been using mosquito dunks and I never knew that they worked by introducing BT! I'm totally using that on my seedling trays (as well as any standing water)!.Thanks!
Thanks. What about root borers that destroy squash plants? Here we are lucky to get 1 squash before they kill the plant. Suggestions on naturally taking them out.
I planted lettuce with potatoes. It was cold, so potatoes took awhile in spring to pop up. Now they are shading the lettuce. I also found slugs prefer potato leaves over lettuce, since I'm not harvesting potato leaves, so I'm fine with potato leaves with holes in them. Makes it easier to pick them off too.
I use a combination of kaolin clay and diatemacious earth on my plants that get affected by pests and net bags on the fruit. I also started using Japanese beetle traps so they get lured to those and leave my plants alone.
This video helped me save a sunflower from those overnight worms that clip off the plant. I created a little twig fortress around my sunflower and she is singing and strong now. Thank you!!!!🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤
I really like your bit about fungus gnats. I never thought about watering the garden with it! I will typically put a bundle of hay into a bucket and let it ferment for a few days in water and then throw a mosquito dunk in there and set it out around my property. I've noticed a SIGNIFICANT reduction in mosquitos because their larvae are dying in those buckets.
The same company makes a product called "mosquito bits" and I make a 'tea' using about a quarter to a half cups of bits to a gallon of hot/warm water, let it soak together for about 15 minutes, letting the water cool off enuf to water with and use this to water my plants. I do this regularly about once a month and also every new plant I bring into the garden gets watered with the tea before I introduce it into the garden. I have gone from massive numbers of fungus gnats destroying my garden a couple years ago, to virtually none of them left at all, and this is the only treatment I've used.
Monterey brand Sluggo Pet Safe ( contains iron not pesticides). Want to put around edge of plants just outside of where u water them cause wet sluggo doesnt work.
Lay out wooden boards. The slugs will crawl under them at night and you can just collect them off the boards. Also, put them on the compost heap for quicker breakdown of the compost. 😉
I have been having problems with caterpillars eating my corn plants. not the ears yet, since those havent formed yet, but the green leafy parts of the plant itself. Just today I sprayed some neem oil on all my corn and I hope that solves the problem.
I got a whitefly infestation on my cucumber vines one year. Oh my lanta. I pruned, sprayed, pruned sprayed ... they just kept "jumping" to another section of the plants. I was able to maintain until the season was over but it was not fun. You've mentioned earwigs in San Diego. Those buggers showed up last year - in force - to my brassicas. My romaine and cabbage leaves became lace ... how do you manage those? Much thanks - great vid!
Diatomaceous earth also works outstanding. Mix into the soil and being it ph natural and add nothing negative to your soil it wreaks havoc on the larvae cutting them up like a meat Grinder.
Is there any kind of mythology around where cutworms originate from? That seems absolutely ripe for there to be some supernatural tales about what comes by at night and clips the seedlings since cutworms only come out at night when people don't see them
I need advice on potato bugs (pill bugs) and earwigs!!! Those are my worst offenders in my patio garden. FYI: I just bought the patio bed from the epic gardening store! So excited to use it!!!
Another comment said this: Donna G 5 hours ago The most abundant pest around here is the earwig. I don't think I've ever seen one fly; but, they sure can climb. Last year, one of the other gardeners suggested that I sink a small cup, like a yogurt cup into the soil and fill it with soy sauce. The earwigs seem to be attracted to the scent of the soy sauce. I tried it and sure enough, the next time I went to the garden, there were earwigs floating in the soy sauce.
The absolute best solution against aphids that I have ever used is a simple mixture of water, a few drops of dishsoap and a bit of vegetable oil, any oil will do. Spray the solution in using a simple spray bottle. The mixture blocks the breathing holes of the aphids and they die off. Do this every day for about a week and you're sorted.
I go out most nights in the spring and fall hunting for cutworms. They are wreaking havoc not just on my garden, but my entire yard. I have WAY too many. On the plus side, my chickens love their tasty breakfast in the morning! Never knew the stick trick-definitely trying it asap. Thank you!
Does anyone have any recommendations for dealing with stink bugs? I have some shield shaped beetles (that spray stink juice when you bother them) and they keep hanging out on my bell peppers and mating. I try to wash them off but they keep coming back. Not sure if they’re harming the plants but last season they were an absolute nuance, covering everything from my bell peppers to my amaranth
I just pick them off into a cup of Dr. Bronners peppermint soap. Don’t squeeze them! Or spray with that same soap & water mix. They despise peppermint soap.
I have learned a trick from Nurseries Carolinia, to use earthworm castings to kill fungus gnats. I have no idea how it works, but it absolutely does. For the first time, I can keep houseplants without being tortured.
I have had to deal with all of these at one point! Right now I'm dealing with Elk, it's been cold in the PNW so they can't go into the mountains where they should be. Everything is emergency fenced off right now!
I used to have trouble with aphids until lady beetles naturally made their way into the garden and starting laying their eggs 😌 warms my heart to see the young lady beetles eat all the aphids
I had aphids all over a trellis full of pole beans! Nothing worked! I read somewhere that old timers used flour to dust the plants and this would kill the aphids as they would bloat from ingesting the flour. I pruned, washed, and then powdered my pole bean leaves with all purpose flour and it worked!
Awesome that you use the Summit Mosquito Dunks. Been using them for years but I hadn't thought of putting the dunks in water. I've been using the Bits but the dunks make it much easier so I don't have to strain out the bits since they get moldy. Thank you so much for that tip. One dunk per 5gal, cool. What I'm understanding is BT will kill all larvae of most any kind of pest. Will BT also kill the larvae of the good bugs too? Great video. Somewhere I read ppl use toothpicks next to the seedlings but I like the sticks even better.
Slugs have been a huge problem in my raised beds on and off. I wrapped the beds in copper tape and that helps at least. Mealybugs are also a pain for me.
The tomatoe horn worms I tend to let eat a plant or 2 because the moth form is a magnificent pollinators. Also I'll have a random pach with native milk weeds for monark butterfly. The cabbage moth is a good pollinator as well just unfortunately there so um not known for this but known for only there damage. Assassin bugs will eat/kill leaf miners.
I mean I personally just use captain Jack's for pretty much all of these.....its certified organic and takes care of all that.....I know there's alot of people that don't like hearing "I use an insecticide" but it does the trick and isn't a systimce.
The company that makes Mosquito Dunks also sell Mosquito bits that does the same thing. You can make smaller batches if you have less soil that you need to treat.
Does anyone know if regular BT works on fungus gnats? The mosquito dunks are quite pricy here in Australia and I usually have a small container of a Dipel (BT) laying around in case of unmanageable cabbage moth infestations - I grow a LOT of Brassicas.
I’m lucky enough to live amongst rapidly declining populations of rare and endangered moth species. I believe BT, tho organic, does great collateral harm to non-target species (it lives on to kill others after killing the target). Happy Earth Day.
In my experience letting the soil dry thoroughly for a while and keeping it less moist after that solves the fungus gnat problem. I am very wary of any insecticides since they cause collateral damage and create even more imbalance in your garden.
Seen a homesteaders use dishsoap and water in a sprayer. He applied the foamy water on stink bugs and cucumbers beatles,, surprisingly they died almost immediately. The dishsopa breaks the waxy surface of the bugs and allows the water to drowned the bugs almost in seconds.
Maybe this can help: Light some of these bugs and mix the ash with water, then spray onto the plants. Maybe add some loudly spoken spell like: "No bugs here, everyone is gone".
@@Aglaja_ I'll have to keep that in mind. We've tried diatomaceous earth and while I'm sure the stuff works we just get them so bad it's overwhelming to keep up with them using that. Only thing mildy effective is the seven spray pesticide that hooks to a garden hose and just drown everything in it. That gets us about 2 weeks of relief before the invasion begins again.
I had a bad year with squash bugs. The following year I didn't grow any cucurbits. The next year I planted cucumbers and zucchinis and there were no squash bugs.
Im curious if you've ever looked into springtail propagation. Im sure there are different species so youd want to make sure you are getting local species. Its really popular for reptile keepers to do bioactive enclosures and if its not set up right they will get fungus gnats. It's controlled by using isopod and springtail colonies. YOU HAVE TO GET LOCAL POPULATIONS if you are putting them outside. But the reason i bring it up is because these little critters naturally live in the soil and keep it healthy but since so many gardners are using potted plants or raised garden beds, they likely arent in your soil immediately to help with these issues.
Plant nasturtiums in and around your garden as decoy plants for green cabbage moth caterpillars, they prefer to lay their eggs on these and will not target your brassicas as much. As well as being aesthetically pleasing, the nasturtium flowers also help to encourage beneficial insects and birds will also be attracted to this food source and help keep other insect numbers in check. You can also eat the leaves and flowers in your salads. They come in a variety of colours in trailing and bush varieties. Try not to use chemicals as this throws the delicate balance of your garden out.
Some one commented planting handful of tobacco in the hole with cucumber seedlings. Or planting a deter crop some squash, but then pull them out once infested and get rid of it completely before they spread.
I planted onion seedlings in the evening. A few days later, I so happened to be outside in the night, and I saw a cut worm. By then, it was too late it completely desimated all the seedlings. (At the time, I didn't know what it was. Looking at it, I figured it was some sort of worm, I was confused wondering why the worm was out so late at night, lol)
What?! Nothing yet 4 root knot nematodes? I seeded mustard in my raised beds 2 days ago n already sprouting. Going to grow n drop but should i let them flower b4 cutting or not n should i dig remainder of mustard plant back into soil to release more glycophates? Thx!
Thanks so much for this video, I had no idea about the mosquito dunks! Any recommendations for squash vine borers? Gonna start a lot of squash this spring and I’m a little nervous. 😬
Cover the plants with tulle (much cheaper than insect netting). You'll have to hand pollinate, but it's alot less work to me than searching out and squishing eggs or injecting BT into the stems.
Thanks so much guys for this super helpful video! Now I finally know what is causing those patterns on the leaves of my beans! One question: Does using BT make our produce toxic for consumption by ourselves or our pets like chickens and tortoises?
Spraying aphids has never worked for me. Not once. And my leafy greens never get attacked. It's always my pepper plants. I inspect every day and am not shy about just smashing the shit out of them, because I am not a pacifist. I'd hit them with diatomaceous earth before I bother with spraying.
I wash and air dry eggshells and crush them and put them in planting holes. The egg membrane my attract the wrong thing so you can bake the shells before crushing. I don't have slugs or snails and haven't seen grub damage. I sprinkle the shells around the plants too.
Strong instant coffee + some dish soap works good against Thrips, first blast them off with water then Spray on the coffee + dish soap solution (coffee + some isopropyl also works), also on the soil.
I’m. So. PISSED! I noticed something was eating my baby broccoli and cabbage sprouts so I bought some insect netting and covered them… I didn’t see anything on the plants when I put the netting on but low and behold 4 days later all I was left with was stems!!! And these green caterpillars are on every plants with a bunch of small green egg looking things on top of the soil!!! They decimated the broccoli and cabbage (the plants only had like 2-4 leaves per plant) but all the lettuce that was right beside it was basically untouched (though I found one on it when I was removing the lettuce). The lettuce pods did have some of the green egg things so I took off the top but if soil and checked the leaves real well (they’re actually growing good, farthest I’ve ever gotten a vegetable to grow, their 3rd set of leaves are starting to grow!) and I put them in fresh soil, added a good bit of diatomaceous earth and going to leave them without a net for a day so I can really watch it. But man I’m so upset!!! Ugghhhhhhhh
Those cabbage worms are bad news if they show up after the head starts forming. The eggs are laid in the tight folds of the head where they go to town. Wasps will go in as far as they can, but they can't go far enough, so they wait for them to emerge. We have a lot of paper wasps where we live. They don't hoard food, so once they take their fill, the worms have nothing to worry about. The only defense we've found is a mesh net all season. We're also working on bird houses and feeders in hopes they will help our efforts.
Give birds a water source. Few drops of organic olive will kill mosquito eggs. We have an electric bug trap. Supposed to only attract the bad bugs not the good ones.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #1 НАЧАЛО ПУТЕШЕСТВИЯ [Новый сезон] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/380Q7gLWGvk/mqdefault.jpg)
Has such bad aphids last year. Three different types (red, green, white) on my plants all at once. It was bad, I was considering pesticides for first time. Then I saw some green worms on them too and got so mad. But my plants suddenly got better, and there were no signs of the leaves being eaten. After some research, I realized they were the larvae of the hoverfly. They completely decimated the aphid population in about 2 weeks. I couldn’t find any! They pupated and became a huge swarm that covered my plants, laying the next gen. To this day, I have never seen such a huge population in hoverflies in my garden and they helped me so much I am glad I waited. I just hope they return again this year! They seemed to be attracted to the “honey” you mentioned that aphids leave, my plants were sticky with it! Even the wasps came by to feed on it 🥲 I am a new gardener (only 5 yrs) so I keep discovering new things every year
Id love to see an episode just about beneficial nematodes
Jacques from the Epic team did one that's quite good. :) ua-cam.com/video/_bAT3YGo-UQ/v-deo.html
They’re so cool
I think about SpongeBob every time I hear of _nematodes_ !
Jacque has a video on it
Get a starter culture from Josh’s frogs. White worms. Benefit? Can also use them to feed fish fry :) haha
Mosquito dunks come in granular form in a shaker container. I simply sprinkle it in my seed starting mix. No more problems. The dunks are great in ponds & bird baths.
Thanks , didn’t know it came in granular form !
The best brand I've found is literally just called Mosquito Bits. XD
I'm reluctant to soak them according to the instructions, because I've found the smell doesn't come out of my watering containers, but sprinkling them on top of the soil has worked just as well for me.
You can see the eggs of the cabbage worms and the leaf miners on the undersides of leaves. Instead of using any kind of pesticide, you can just find the eggs and rub them off with your finger. Then cover your vulnerable plants (brassicas, beets, kale, swiss chard, spinach) with fine mesh bug netting for gardens so the moths can't get in to lay their eggs anymore.
Or just use sticky tape and dab the underside of the leaves and you just stick em up 🔫
So they’re not in the ground then ?? Thanks for the tip because mom and I love chard and I’m new to all this.
I've actually encountered at least 5 of these pests in my garden and I can tell you the worst one for me has nothing to do with the actual plant, but the fact that the Fungus Gnats love to attack your face. Nose, eyes, mouth, all got flew into by this super annoying pest! 😤 Wish I knew this info beforehand.
This is such a valuable video for me. I have been gardening for years and have been getting crushed by pests in San Diego. I am so happy to have some solutions!!! Thank you! Hopefully now I can eat some of my harvest 😅
Diatomaceous earth is great sprinkled at the base of your plants to help with cutworms. And if you spray anything, even the organic stuff, don’t do it in the morning when pollinators are doing their thing. Afternoon and evening is best
As a super new gardener I greatly appreciate you both sharing your wealth of knowledge with us, especially for free. My only request is could you please write out the names of the products you recommend? Whether on screen or in the description box. Sometimes it's hard to make out what the name is that's being said and I don't want to get it wrong. Thank you!
I did a container garden of Sunflower and Osteospermum a.k.a African daisy. Looks so pretty and the Sunflower is supposed to attract bees, earth worms and ladybugs. Ladybugs are supposed to eat Aphids. I thought I learned about Sunflower benefits from this channel. You all are so helpful. Thank you for your videos.
The most abundant pest around here is the earwig. I don't think I've ever seen one fly; but, they sure can climb. Last year, one of the other gardeners suggested that I sink a small cup, like a yogurt cup into the soil and fill it with soy sauce. The earwigs seem to be attracted to the scent of the soy sauce. I tried it and sure enough, the next time I went to the garden, there were earwigs floating in the soy sauce.
I read a comment that someone uses a combination of soy sauce and oil. I think the oil makes it extremely difficult for the pests to escape.
Earwigs eat aphids tho. … I like having them around.
earwigs & roly-polys should be on this list as well!
@@shyviolets42But they also eat blossoms! Or at least they are this year in the garden I share with my Mom. They're everywhere and it's been so frustrating trying to kill them off, because it's too dry for aphids so far this year and we're not watering beyond the raised garden beds.
Tried this (a bit of any kitchen oil mixed with a bit of soy source, and I re-use sauce/salsa take-put containers), and yeah….works great, and for me, catches both ear wigs and moisture knats.
Highly informative, excellent graphics and examples, concise and the use of two persons to keep it entertaining. Love these videos! Keep on being a great source of help for gardeners. Greetings from Berlin, Germany
Mosquito dunks along with sticky traps works amazingly well for indoor and greenhouse gardening. I've tried nematodes and traps but couldn't completely disrupt the lifecycle. Once I started treating full strength BT once a week all my gnat problems disappeared!
The Dunks and Bits are excellent for gnat control!
100% Nothing else was anywhere close to as effective as BT. I buy bags of the mosquito bits and use large tea bags to soak soak them in water, add a little liquid fertilizer, and my indoor plants are in happy town. A Neem spray for the foliage helps keep the adults from landing on leaves since they seem to hate it. Add on the yellow sticky traps, and you can keep those suckers controlled. Here in PNW, I've accepted that I will never be rid of them, but I can definitely keep them at bay. The suckers love spreading disease to every freaking plant outside and inside my house.
I remember my art teacher getting us to catch ladybugs for her garden she said keeping a healthy population of them was great for dealing with aphids because they're basically their favorite food.🤷 But a neat trick if so.☺️
Sun dew carnivorous plants are fatally attractive to fungus gnats. I worked in an open floor wide cube farm where every plant had fungus gnats. One person brought in one sun dew and all the gnats were gone overnight and never came back. I'd like to see you experiment with one, especially in a confined space like a green house.
Sundews are great for that. Some petunias have similar sticky leaves and trap insects, and then their bodies get washed away into the soil when it rains! So cool.
Thanks for this tip! Will try it soon, lots of sundew around here, literal fields..
yes and no...fungas gnats can still land on the non carnivorous part of the sundew and still lay eggs. also he has to hope that the fungus gnats focus on the sundews and not the other garden plants
pinguicula are evenbetter for fungus gnats
@@Nick_Jarrett Yes! Those are more like the petunia leaves I was talking about. 👍👍
Found this out by accident. I hung a suet block over some aphid infested roses in the morning before going to work. Chickadees, sparrows and bushtits were common visitors at the suet feeder. When I came home at the end of the work day I went out to spray a home-brew insecticide on the roses. There was no trace of aphids on the roses. I now routinely use this practice for aphid control.
I've had great success eliminating cutworms with diatamaceous earth. I just sprinkle it on the row where I just planted either seeds or plants, and have never had a problem with cut worms after that.
Calendula is an amazing trap crop for aphids, I put Calendula by all my starts and the aphids go straight to those flowers and leave my starts alone 👍 I also use ladybugs and preying mantis in my greenhouse to keep the populations down.
I put out ant traps that have jelled boric acid powder in them after I hose down the plant with water to knock off existing aphids. They need the ants to herd them there. With the ants killing themselves feasting on the ant traps that are for sale with the jelled boric acid powder, the problem with aphids is over. However continuing the ant traps is necessary and they last a long time.
OMG...all these years I've been using mosquito dunks and I never knew that they worked by introducing BT! I'm totally using that on my seedling trays (as well as any standing water)!.Thanks!
OMG I cracked up when the short clip of insect controlling birds were hummingbirds!!
Thanks.
What about root borers that destroy squash plants? Here we are lucky to get 1 squash before they kill the plant. Suggestions on naturally taking them out.
I planted lettuce with potatoes. It was cold, so potatoes took awhile in spring to pop up. Now they are shading the lettuce. I also found slugs prefer potato leaves over lettuce, since I'm not harvesting potato leaves, so I'm fine with potato leaves with holes in them. Makes it easier to pick them off too.
I use a combination of kaolin clay and diatemacious earth on my plants that get affected by pests and net bags on the fruit. I also started using Japanese beetle traps so they get lured to those and leave my plants alone.
Use milky spore for getting rid of Japanese beetles grubs❤ several treatments over 2-3 years is supposed to nip them
Jacques did the opening ‘pop up’ with Kevin, love it!! Great info from the best guys on UA-cam!!!! 🙏🏼☀️😄
This video helped me save a sunflower from those overnight worms that clip off the plant. I created a little twig fortress around my sunflower and she is singing and strong now. Thank you!!!!🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤
the stick method is the best! I do that for my beans.
Araucaria Bidwillii in the background at 7:24. That's awesome.
I really like your bit about fungus gnats. I never thought about watering the garden with it! I will typically put a bundle of hay into a bucket and let it ferment for a few days in water and then throw a mosquito dunk in there and set it out around my property. I've noticed a SIGNIFICANT reduction in mosquitos because their larvae are dying in those buckets.
The same company makes a product called "mosquito bits" and I make a 'tea' using about a quarter to a half cups of bits to a gallon of hot/warm water, let it soak together for about 15 minutes, letting the water cool off enuf to water with and use this to water my plants. I do this regularly about once a month and also every new plant I bring into the garden gets watered with the tea before I introduce it into the garden. I have gone from massive numbers of fungus gnats destroying my garden a couple years ago, to virtually none of them left at all, and this is the only treatment I've used.
Last year in my greenhous I had almost no pests. What I had instead were quite a lot of well fed predatory insects.
You guys covered a lot of issues here, this is really great. You're really good at gardening problems and solutions! thank you
Please, please, please tell me how to get rid of snails. They are my arch nemesis. I would watch a 3 hour video dedicated to that alone. 😮
Monterey brand Sluggo Pet Safe ( contains iron not pesticides). Want to put around edge of plants just outside of where u water them cause wet sluggo doesnt work.
Lay out wooden boards. The slugs will crawl under them at night and you can just collect them off the boards. Also, put them on the compost heap for quicker breakdown of the compost. 😉
Can't believe there are no spidermites here, they are the worst
Keep the air humidity around the plant high if possible. They hate that.
I have been having problems with caterpillars eating my corn plants. not the ears yet, since those havent formed yet, but the green leafy parts of the plant itself. Just today I sprayed some neem oil on all my corn and I hope that solves the problem.
Bt should work better on worms..
The mosquito dunks watering thing blew my mind .
I got a whitefly infestation on my cucumber vines one year. Oh my lanta. I pruned, sprayed, pruned sprayed ... they just kept "jumping" to another section of the plants. I was able to maintain until the season was over but it was not fun. You've mentioned earwigs in San Diego. Those buggers showed up last year - in force - to my brassicas. My romaine and cabbage leaves became lace ... how do you manage those? Much thanks - great vid!
Diatomaceous earth also works outstanding. Mix into the soil and being it ph natural and add nothing negative to your soil it wreaks havoc on the larvae cutting them up like a meat Grinder.
But only until u water or it rains?
@@lyndelgado6138 yes, you must reapply every time it gets wet - which makes it not very effective if you water and wet the soil regularly.
Why did I decide to watch this while eating lunch?!
I am hoping I don't have nightmares about the creepin' crawlin' nasty bugs tonight.
Is there any kind of mythology around where cutworms originate from? That seems absolutely ripe for there to be some supernatural tales about what comes by at night and clips the seedlings since cutworms only come out at night when people don't see them
Potato bugs, squash vine borer, and slugs are my main pest. Aphids definitely as well!
Squash vine borer is my nemesis.
Thank you SOOOO much for this video. It has been a life saver ❤
Aphids & Whiteflies the banes of my pepper plants .Which plants are the best at attracting beneficial insects all season?
I need advice on potato bugs (pill bugs) and earwigs!!! Those are my worst offenders in my patio garden. FYI: I just bought the patio bed from the epic gardening store! So excited to use it!!!
Another comment said this:
Donna G
5 hours ago
The most abundant pest around here is the earwig. I don't think I've ever seen one fly; but, they sure can climb. Last year, one of the other gardeners suggested that I sink a small cup, like a yogurt cup into the soil and fill it with soy sauce. The earwigs seem to be attracted to the scent of the soy sauce. I tried it and sure enough, the next time I went to the garden, there were earwigs floating in the soy sauce.
Try Sluggo+. It's an organic pesticide for slugs, snails, pill bugs, and earwigs.
Im gonna try the soy sauce trick
Nice video! Could you do a follow up on larger pests? Like squirrels and possums 😭?
We created a frame, then put tulle over everything. "Bridal" tulle that's extra wide reduces how much you'll have to buy.
A pair of dogs works pretty well assuming they don't become a bigger problem XD
I’ve got iguanas eating my passion fruit 😢
How do I control EARWIGS? Seems like more than normal this year?
Bonide (capn jack's dead bug) annihalated a bad thrip infestation in one application on a greek basil plant last year.
The absolute best solution against aphids that I have ever used is a simple mixture of water, a few drops of dishsoap and a bit of vegetable oil, any oil will do. Spray the solution in using a simple spray bottle. The mixture blocks the breathing holes of the aphids and they die off. Do this every day for about a week and you're sorted.
I go out most nights in the spring and fall hunting for cutworms. They are wreaking havoc not just on my garden, but my entire yard. I have WAY too many. On the plus side, my chickens love their tasty breakfast in the morning! Never knew the stick trick-definitely trying it asap. Thank you!
Do you have anything with pincher bugs or ear wigs
Does anyone have any recommendations for dealing with stink bugs? I have some shield shaped beetles (that spray stink juice when you bother them) and they keep hanging out on my bell peppers and mating. I try to wash them off but they keep coming back. Not sure if they’re harming the plants but last season they were an absolute nuance, covering everything from my bell peppers to my amaranth
One way that helps with many insects is to encourage natural predators like birds, spiders and such ☺️
I just pick them off into a cup of Dr. Bronners peppermint soap. Don’t squeeze them! Or spray with that same soap & water mix. They despise peppermint soap.
I have learned a trick from Nurseries Carolinia, to use earthworm castings to kill fungus gnats. I have no idea how it works, but it absolutely does. For the first time, I can keep houseplants without being tortured.
I just grab those and chuck them on the nearby spider web lol the garden has a ton of spider webs
This is really helpful! Would love to get your advice on snails too -- I've had a few on my cantaloupe leaves in their seedling phase.
I have snails in my strawberry patch, ew..
Pour a small bowl of beer, and place it close to plants. They will drink, fall in and die. This actually works.
For me, it’s snails. Started using Organic Slugo Plus - hopefully it works
I have had to deal with all of these at one point! Right now I'm dealing with Elk, it's been cold in the PNW so they can't go into the mountains where they should be. Everything is emergency fenced off right now!
My biggest problem for the past two years are the flee beetles and last year tarnished plant bugs.
I used to have trouble with aphids until lady beetles naturally made their way into the garden and starting laying their eggs 😌 warms my heart to see the young lady beetles eat all the aphids
Eating the herbs and marigolds also.Just started my garden along with rain every other day.Thanks
I had aphids all over a trellis full of pole beans! Nothing worked! I read somewhere that old timers used flour to dust the plants and this would kill the aphids as they would bloat from ingesting the flour. I pruned, washed, and then powdered my pole bean leaves with all purpose flour and it worked!
Would love to see something on Japanese beetles? Or do you guys have those?
Thank you this was super helpful! I have major thrips problem!
Awesome that you use the Summit Mosquito Dunks. Been using them for years but I hadn't thought of putting the dunks in water. I've been using the Bits but the dunks make it much easier so I don't have to strain out the bits since they get moldy. Thank you so much for that tip. One dunk per 5gal, cool. What I'm understanding is BT will kill all larvae of most any kind of pest. Will BT also kill the larvae of the good bugs too? Great video. Somewhere I read ppl use toothpicks next to the seedlings but I like the sticks even better.
Slugs have been a huge problem in my raised beds on and off. I wrapped the beds in copper tape and that helps at least. Mealybugs are also a pain for me.
Soapy water in a sprayer works great for white flies too
The tomatoe horn worms I tend to let eat a plant or 2 because the moth form is a magnificent pollinators.
Also I'll have a random pach with native milk weeds for monark butterfly.
The cabbage moth is a good pollinator as well just unfortunately there so um not known for this but known for only there damage.
Assassin bugs will eat/kill leaf miners.
I mean I personally just use captain Jack's for pretty much all of these.....its certified organic and takes care of all that.....I know there's alot of people that don't like hearing "I use an insecticide" but it does the trick and isn't a systimce.
The company that makes Mosquito Dunks also sell Mosquito bits that does the same thing. You can make smaller batches if you have less soil that you need to treat.
I buy the bits because I can control use too. They aren’t nearly as expensive.
🌎 Happy Earth Day! 🌎
The way I usually find thrips is on my skin, biting me. Then I know its time for thyme (oil) in whatever section of the garden I'm in.
For aphids I have a lot of ladybugs in my yard so I don’t need to worry😊
Does anyone know if regular BT works on fungus gnats?
The mosquito dunks are quite pricy here in Australia and I usually have a small container of a Dipel (BT) laying around
in case of unmanageable cabbage moth infestations - I grow a LOT of Brassicas.
I’m lucky enough to live amongst rapidly declining populations of rare and endangered moth species. I believe BT, tho organic, does great collateral harm to non-target species (it lives on to kill others after killing the target). Happy Earth Day.
Yeah l would appreciate to learn if it kills the fungus gnats. Anyone tried it on those pests, give us your experience.
In my experience letting the soil dry thoroughly for a while and keeping it less moist after that solves the fungus gnat problem. I am very wary of any insecticides since they cause collateral damage and create even more imbalance in your garden.
@@LittleKikuyuthanks for explaining this. It’s worth a try before grabbing for anything else that could do more damage than good 👍
Seen a homesteaders use dishsoap and water in a sprayer. He applied the foamy water on stink bugs and cucumbers beatles,, surprisingly they died almost immediately. The dishsopa breaks the waxy surface of the bugs and allows the water to drowned the bugs almost in seconds.
Squash bugs are our nemesis. Every year the ravage the garden.
Maybe this can help: Light some of these bugs and mix the ash with water, then spray onto the plants. Maybe add some loudly spoken spell like: "No bugs here, everyone is gone".
@@Aglaja_ I'll have to keep that in mind. We've tried diatomaceous earth and while I'm sure the stuff works we just get them so bad it's overwhelming to keep up with them using that. Only thing mildy effective is the seven spray pesticide that hooks to a garden hose and just drown everything in it. That gets us about 2 weeks of relief before the invasion begins again.
I had a bad year with squash bugs. The following year I didn't grow any cucurbits. The next year I planted cucumbers and zucchinis and there were no squash bugs.
@@pintsizestories196 they go after our pumpkins first but apparently don't care for the cucumbers much
The only real problem I've had with garden pests is freaking potato beetles. Good lord those thing are a pain.
Thanks for sharing these tips!
Im curious if you've ever looked into springtail propagation. Im sure there are different species so youd want to make sure you are getting local species. Its really popular for reptile keepers to do bioactive enclosures and if its not set up right they will get fungus gnats. It's controlled by using isopod and springtail colonies. YOU HAVE TO GET LOCAL POPULATIONS if you are putting them outside. But the reason i bring it up is because these little critters naturally live in the soil and keep it healthy but since so many gardners are using potted plants or raised garden beds, they likely arent in your soil immediately to help with these issues.
Yay! Thank you for following and promoting IPM!
Great tips! I love to garden and this information can help me with the pests I’m my garden. Now I can identify some of the problems !
Such a helpful video!! Thank you!
Plant nasturtiums in and around your garden as decoy plants for green cabbage moth caterpillars, they prefer to lay their eggs on these and will not target your brassicas as much.
As well as being aesthetically pleasing, the nasturtium flowers also help to encourage beneficial insects and birds will also be attracted to this food source and help keep other insect numbers in check.
You can also eat the leaves and flowers in your salads.
They come in a variety of colours in trailing and bush varieties.
Try not to use chemicals as this throws the delicate balance of your garden out.
Love you guys. Keep it up.! Straw hats off!!
I have a cucumber beetle problem & it driving me nuts 😢
Some one commented planting handful of tobacco in the hole with cucumber seedlings. Or planting a deter crop some squash, but then pull them out once infested and get rid of it completely before they spread.
I have also grown all my tomato plants in pairs. Saves on space.
I understand why there is no garden hose on my apartment balcony... But any time I'm dealing with these pests, I wish there was!
I’m a new rose grower. And oh boy. Thrips. Trying not to get discouraged.
We have an electric bug trap. Not supposed to kill the bees and good bugs, only the pests.
Outstanding video guys!
I planted onion seedlings in the evening. A few days later, I so happened to be outside in the night, and I saw a cut worm. By then, it was too late it completely desimated all the seedlings. (At the time, I didn't know what it was. Looking at it, I figured it was some sort of worm, I was confused wondering why the worm was out so late at night, lol)
What?! Nothing yet 4 root knot nematodes? I seeded mustard in my raised beds 2 days ago n already sprouting. Going to grow n drop but should i let them flower b4 cutting or not n should i dig remainder of mustard plant back into soil to release more glycophates? Thx!
I think I get cabbage looper or cabbage worm on my gooseberries. They eat up ALL the leaves and prevent any fruiting
Thanks so much for this video, I had no idea about the mosquito dunks! Any recommendations for squash vine borers? Gonna start a lot of squash this spring and I’m a little nervous. 😬
Cover the plants with tulle (much cheaper than insect netting). You'll have to hand pollinate, but it's alot less work to me than searching out and squishing eggs or injecting BT into the stems.
I use the hose to get rid of the aphids and it works great!
Don't you destroy the plant by whipping it.
@@geraldhowse8597 No! I also kind of squish them off and then spray the plant with water! Hasn’t hurt any of the plants.
What about the Vine bore worms ,?? I had a bad experience with them last yr on my squash plant .
Thanks so much guys for this super helpful video! Now I finally know what is causing those patterns on the leaves of my beans! One question: Does using BT make our produce toxic for consumption by ourselves or our pets like chickens and tortoises?
No. BT only effects larval stages of various pests.
@@loverlyredhead thank you!
I have lots of gnats in my compost bins. Can I use Mosquito Dunks there or will it affect beneficial insects also?
They may be fruit flies. Turn it more often and cover with a brown layer.
Cabbage loopers are the bane of my garden!
Timely video, my catnip plants are covered in thrips and I'm tryna keep em alive. Winter just started here in South Africa
A fellow South African!
My catnip got covered in thrips and I got rid of them by blasting with a hose several times a week.
Spraying aphids has never worked for me. Not once. And my leafy greens never get attacked. It's always my pepper plants. I inspect every day and am not shy about just smashing the shit out of them, because I am not a pacifist. I'd hit them with diatomaceous earth before I bother with spraying.
Great video. Excellent information. Thanks for posting.
We need a grubs video! Not just Japanese beetles grubs but all kinds of grubs. They keep eating my roots 😢
I wash and air dry eggshells and crush them and put them in planting holes. The egg membrane my attract the wrong thing so you can bake the shells before crushing. I don't have slugs or snails and haven't seen grub damage. I sprinkle the shells around the plants too.
Strong instant coffee + some dish soap works good against Thrips, first blast them off with water then Spray on the coffee + dish soap solution (coffee + some isopropyl also works), also on the soil.
I’m. So. PISSED! I noticed something was eating my baby broccoli and cabbage sprouts so I bought some insect netting and covered them… I didn’t see anything on the plants when I put the netting on but low and behold 4 days later all I was left with was stems!!! And these green caterpillars are on every plants with a bunch of small green egg looking things on top of the soil!!! They decimated the broccoli and cabbage (the plants only had like 2-4 leaves per plant) but all the lettuce that was right beside it was basically untouched (though I found one on it when I was removing the lettuce). The lettuce pods did have some of the green egg things so I took off the top but if soil and checked the leaves real well (they’re actually growing good, farthest I’ve ever gotten a vegetable to grow, their 3rd set of leaves are starting to grow!) and I put them in fresh soil, added a good bit of diatomaceous earth and going to leave them without a net for a day so I can really watch it. But man I’m so upset!!! Ugghhhhhhhh
Those cabbage worms are bad news if they show up after the head starts forming. The eggs are laid in the tight folds of the head where they go to town. Wasps will go in as far as they can, but they can't go far enough, so they wait for them to emerge. We have a lot of paper wasps where we live. They don't hoard food, so once they take their fill, the worms have nothing to worry about. The only defense we've found is a mesh net all season. We're also working on bird houses and feeders in hopes they will help our efforts.
Give birds a water source. Few drops of organic olive will kill mosquito eggs. We have an electric bug trap. Supposed to only attract the bad bugs not the good ones.
As an OC gardener, you guys are my favorite resource! 💚