pest update

The fight continues.  First of all, for all of you avid home gardeners, I want to be sure that you are armed with some of the most educational material I have found about garden pests and disease and how to treat.  UC Davis' Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program website is full of information that has proven very useful to me with my current challenges.  Thanks to the thorough information there, I have been able to identify all of the pests currently in the garden and come up with strategies to combat them while remaining true to an organic framework.  Turns out that three of the four pests I'm dealing with right now are fairly easy to fight off.

Cabbage aphid, Brevicoryne brassicae

Western yellowstripee armyworm, Spodoptera praefica

Variegated cutworm, Paridroma saucia

The 4th one you all know about by now...

Vegetable weevil, Listroderes costirostris obliquus

Went and consulted with a master gardener at Walter Anderson Nursery, one of our best in town in my opinion.  Turns out that the diatomaceous earth was a good call, so I picked up another two big bags.  Additionally, I picked up some neem oil, which is a broad spectrum insecticide that is a major irritant to mammals, but ultimately non toxic.  To the first three bugs however, it is fatal.  So, back out into the night I went with a flashlight to get a good look at all my uninvited party guests.  The worms made for some very satifying squashing during this time of frustration, picked off as many of the weevils as I could, and sprayed a 5 gallon mix of the neem oil for anything else remaining.  The oil will not kill the weevils, but does kill the eggs and render adults incapable of further breeding.  Cross your fingers.  In the meantime, I will be going out every night after dark to squash whatever remains: The Bug Hunter.  As for the neem, it gets applied every 7 to 14 days until pests disappear, and the DE every night after squashing rounds.  It will be a lot of work but if it gets rid of the pests, it will be worth it.

It now being April, I may be too late to get the heirloom tomatoes to grow back and fruit in time for the summer heat, but I will plant some up in the greenhouse window (aka laundry room) and see what we get.  In the meantime, I'm hoping my friends and neighbors from the seed swap will be generous in trade for what I am able to get to grow.  In the worst case scenario, I will consider replacing heirlooms with semi-organic non-GMO pest resistant hybrids ready to put in the ground at Walter Anderson.  Not as healthy, not as tasty, not as rewarding... but better than nothing at all.



On a happier side note, I received my pressure canner in the mail yesterday.  If you are thinking of canning your veggies, let me tell you that now is the time to be shopping for canning supplies.  I was able to get a 23-quart pressure canner for about half the regular price, being April instead of September.  Once Autumn rolls around, all of the supply costs get inflated because of demand.  If you're thinking of trying your hand at preserving what you grow, now is the time to be looking into it!

UPDATE 10:30pm: Got home from work and did the rounds.  No more worms!  It's a start!  As for the aphids, cut by about half.  And the weevils?  Caught and exterminated 12 tonight and that is all I found from the hundreds from nights past.  It seems to be working folks!