Garden pest help

[thumpershere2]

For the gardeners out there. What do you use other then chemicals to keep bugs off your plants? I have something starting to eat on the leaves of my cabbage.I have heard about a dish soap mixed with water but not sure if that would work. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[PA Baker]

You can mix Ivory soap with water and spray the leaves with that--it sometimes helps. If it's slugs eating the leaves, take small dishes or plastic containers, bury them so the lip of the dish is level with the soil (around your plants) and fill them with beer. They're attracted to the beer, drink it and die. It works really well!

Garden centers also have insecticidal soap that's chemical free and other non-toxic (to us) pest reducers.

 

[Constance]

For the gardeners out there. What do you use other then chemicals to keep bugs off your plants? I have something starting to eat on the leaves of my cabbage.I have heard about a dish soap mixed with water but not sure if that would work. Any ideas? Thanks.

It's probably cabbage worms that are eating on your plants. They are larva of those pretty little yellow butterflies you see flitting around in your garden.

Insecticidal Soap is an excellent product, but the best solution for your cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower is bacillus thurengenisis...available as Dipel Dust or Thuricide liquid. It's harmless to humans and beneficial insects. Dipel works only on worms, by paralyzing their digestive systems, causing them to starve to death.

By the way, Insecticidal Soap is not your grandma's lye soap. I used to buy it in 2 gallon jugs to use in the greenhouse, and UPS always tacked a hazardous shipping charge on the bill. Go figure.

My Grandma White, an Amish lady, made her own soap. After she got done washing clothes or scrubbing the floors, she'd throw her washwater out on her vegetable garden. If you can find some good old-fashioned lye soap, shave a little into a bucket of lukewarm water, stir to dissolve, and spray it liberally on your cabbages.

 

[TATTRAT]

Soap, and vineager, or even a little watered down tabbasco have all worked well for me in the past...mind you, I have never grown cabbage. i typically do peppers, hierloom tomatoes, baby veggies:patty pans, zuchs, sunbursts....

 

[Claire]

I'm with PA. My first line of defense is Ivory soap. Sometimes it doesn't work and I have to use something stronger. But a squirt of dish soap in a hose end feeder sometimes will head off a problem. I,too,never had luck with cabbage. But give it a try.

Constance, I learned the trick of soap from a similar old lady. My hibiscus buds were being eaten before they could bloom. I commented to a lady I knew on Kauai whose blooms were gorgeous. She replied that all she did was throw her diswater on the plants every night after she washed dishes. I followed suite and my blossoms were gorgeous ever after. I think I need to get back to washing dishes in a basin inside of the sink so I don't waste that yummy plant food and insecticide!!

 

[thumpershere2]

Thank you all for the suggestions and I will try them. Knew I could get some answeres here.

 

[liketobake]

Soap, and vineager, or even a little watered down tabbasco have all worked well for me in the past...mind you, I have never grown cabbage. i typically do peppers, hierloom tomatoes, baby veggies:patty pans, zuchs, sunbursts....

Like TATTRAT said, vineagar works very well on young weeds.

 

[Snoop Puss]

Lots of really good advice that I will try out too. If none of this works, though I can't see why it shouldn't if grandmothers have been doing it down the centuries (!), have a look at the BBC plant pest identifier to see if they can help. I presume this will be useful for you - the pests I saw in the UK are pretty much the same as the ones here in Spain, so I imagine there'll be similar things in the States.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/advice/pests_and_diseases/

Good luck.