The Quest for Organic Garden Pesticide

I took a couple of days for myself. Meaning I've done very minimal things to my garden, other than the little watering and moving some of my plants to get optimal sun or out of sun or whatever. You get the idea. 

In those two days, one of my planters of marigolds got an unwanted house-guest. Some kind of insect I'm not sure which, whether they are mites or aphids. All I could possibly think about are moving some of my spiders over there like an all you can eat buffet special. But my spiders don't like that kind of handling, they're still rather little and they're doing such good work in my other planters. My other option was running down to the Fred Myer garden center and buying a packet of ladybugs.... but... er... I'm afraid of lady bugs and would much rather not.

In my Mini-Farming book, which gave me all the information to get started with my garden, they talk about active and passive ways to deal with pests. It talks about how crop rotation helps (which I didn't think important to my circumstance), and proper composting and watering can help lower disease. Active ways to deal with pests are some simple at home remedies such as hot peppers steeped in a gallon of water with an added drop of dish soap can protect cabbage, onions and carrots from maggots. It mentions oil and soaps can harm the waxy coating on the bugs that force them to leave. The book even mentions the authors own home natural pesticide made from concentrated steeped tea from the Pyrethrum Daisies. As home-o-pathic I like to try to be, I wanted to find some of the pyrethrum daisies and make some myself, but I felt more pressured to help the marigolds now and not waste time waiting to grow, dry and steep daisies.  

I've read somewhere that certain plants companion-ed with tomatoes and carrots are rather helpful to them. Marigolds, carrots and garlic are helpful to tomatoes and so on. I told this to Jon when I did more research into it and he's like, "Okay whatever... crazy lady" and when he's at work he sees all sorts of people's homes and gardens and he started to notice the golden little flowers all around the tomato beds. And I was like, "Yep... now you believe me." It either means I caught onto an old traditional idea, or the rest of the town is just as crazy as I am. 

Warning: bugs

The Marigolds I see as a form of protector for my other plants, which is why I don't feel all too terrible about the aphid attack on them, but I worry... when they are done munching the heck out of those plants, will they turn their interest on my tomatoes as dessert? That scared me. So I did some research on a natural organic company that's near by. There's a very famous, five star garden center that's actually a few blocks from my house, but they don't carry the same kind of product I wanted. Mostly Miracle-Grow products, which I find frustratingly not effective. I also needed to start investing into some organic fertilizer as well, for when the time comes later in the season. 

So in my search I came across this recently defined garden warehouse called Portland Hydroponics & Organics. Thought, why the heck not try it? It's located 10 minutes away, worth the time to check it out. And I was rather impressed. The place was run by those type of people you'd find working in Abercrombie, without the shallowness and being overly perfumed with junk. These guys had freaking braincells. Now as a natural pesticide for organic gardening, I heard raving reviews of this product that contained Neem oil. I tried to touch on some research before I went there. It's derived from an African tree and it causes the insects to go sterile so they can't reproduce to out of control. And as soon as I asked, the guy pointed out the neem oil. Now it was a rather large jug that I knew I wouldn't be able to use all the way for my little garden, and it was heavily concentrated for $20. Wonderful bargain, I knew, if I had a much larger space and twice as many plants, but it wasn't in the cards for me to invest in it now. So he recommended another brand I heard about called Safer. It's a 3-in-1 garden spray that kills mites and pests and can also help treat fungus (which has been the death of a few of my house plants over the winter).  It is already pre-diluted in water solvent and in a spray bottle (image is not entirely the same as what I actually bought). 

Organic natural pesticide/fungicide

Now as a natural and organic pesticide, it mostly makes up of Potassium salts and fatty acids and sulfur. And it smells like butter with a hint of citrus. My grandmother told me many times that marigolds are smelly and gross flowers that grow like weeds. And yes they do, but I've always liked their fragrance and they attract butterflies while warding off wasps, but now my marigolds smell like butter and citrus. Last night in late evening, I sprayed the marigolds down, and the stuff started working instantly. The bugs are dead, their carcasses are still clinging to the buds, and the plants didn't seem all that affected. Until an hour later, all the little golden flowers started wilting and dying. and I was having mini panic attacks. "Wait a minute! this is organic and safe! why are they dying!?" Well the plant part itself isn't damaged at all. They're perfectly fine, and in fact newer little buds are blooming now, and it's just the flowers that had bugs that are drying up and being rejected. So I'll have to watch it for a few days to make sure it's alright. But I have the feeling that they're going to bounce back just fine. They are after all in Grandma's words, weeds. Took her forever to kill hers and she was trying to get rid of them.