Ground has been broken.....
... it has been hoed, squared, and garbage bags have been placed.So your probably wondering, "What is the white stuff?". Our neighbor asked the same thing. It's called Diatomaceous Earth (aka DE). It essentially is organic bug killer. DE is fossilized remains of marine phytoplankton and when it gets on most bugs it will dehydrate them. Here is a nice post describing more about it. http://www.richsoil.com/diatomaceous-earth.jsp I prefer to use it because it is safe for animals and people to ingest. Our Little Boy has been ingesting a lot of dirt recently due to us working in the garden more so DE makes me feel more ok with him eating dirt. In fact, a lot of people will buy the food grade DE to consume as a way of detoxifying. People claim and farmers that DE helps with parasites and carrying heavy metals out of the body. http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2014/01/diatomaceous-earth-homestead.html
So lets talk pests!
So far this year my biggest pests are actually pretty big and hairy or feathery. My cat has already eaten the leaves off of four of my bean seedlings. The ones with feathers are the actually strawberry thief! We caught them red handed! (We are going to build a cage to cover the strawberries) I really just need a green house...no really I do!
Last year the biggest pest we had were caterpillars and ants. Now ants can be beneficial to a garden but ants also really like aphids which are not good for your garden. Ants love these little aphids because they secrete a sweet liquid that the ants eat. They will actually make their own little farm of aphids and "milk" them. Yep, that's right they milk them. We had quite a few little aphid farms in our garden last year as well. One good treatment I found was to mix a couple drops of dish soap, a tablespoon of vinegar, about 10 to 20 drops of peppermint essential oil, in a spray bottle then fill with water and shake. You can also use citronella essential oil with lemongrass essential oil. Then I would spray this mixture on the plant directly on the aphids. It worked really well as long as I remembered to spray it every three days or so.
The ants go marching everywhere!
It seemed no matter how many times we would destroy an ant bed they would show up somewhere else. There are a plethora of methods you can use for getting rid of ants. Still working on the best one. DE is pretty effective. Also, constantly bothering them works too. We also tried essential oils on the ants which helps but you have to keep adding it pretty much every other day. They do not like the smell. We also would just shovel them out of the bed. I do not recommend the shoveling method. (The husband gets bit) =) Some people claim pouring boiling water down their ant hole works. We never tried that because they were always too close to my plants. I wish you the best of luck if you have as many ants as we did last year!
We are trying a new method of pest control this year!
I have been searching Pinterest and YouTube for an organic pest control method that is easy, sounds reasonable, and has good reviews. I think I have found one! It sounds easy any way. Please watch the video below to find out details on this method.
If you don't want to watch the video, here is the basic gist of it: Mix Sol Suds (Dr Bonners brand), with Neem oil and water. Then place in a fogger atomizer and spray your plants weekly. However, he explains you should be careful to see that your plants do not get a build up of oil on them. I will report on the method as soon as we start. Feel free to send me or comment about any other methods that you may know about on keeping pests out of your garden organically. It's hard work and I have a little better understanding why organic produce costs as much as it does.
Here is a picture of the seedlings they are almost ready to put in the ground!
It is getting exciting around here!!
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