I Want to Try Something Else

[flowerbug]

I think you could use a stick, just something where they cannot wrap around the stem. The paper cups might be easier. The nails rust, but I pick them up and reuse the next year. DH bought big boxes of nails in 1998. We owned 10 acres of land and we were planning on building a lot of different things, but we sold the land and over the years the nails have been used for different things. I still fear cutworms and when I do put mulch out on the garden, like I have right now in parts of the garden, it just sends cold chills through me and I want to go rake it up. Lol

i have about 2/3rds of a gallon jug full of rusty nails. i should start selling them as cutworm protectors!

 

[Dirtmechanic]

it would be really good to know which specific insects you are having trouble with...

to me it takes much more effort to till than to use a shovel to turn over a garden (i don't dig up an entire garden that often - my normal routine disturbs about 5-10% of a garden when i'm burying garden debris at the end of the season - i may surface scrape the whole thing but i'm only skimming the surface and in the harder clay areas i'm just cutting off weeds at the surface). tilling also may not really bury the bugs/stuff but spread it out through the whole soil layer being tilled, so if you are trying to get rid of things by burying, well it may not actually accomplish that.

that all said, if you are going to till the sooner the better IMO as that gives any of your mulch and buried stuff time to break down and for the soil community to sort itself out again.

the vegetable gardens i keep here are mostly left bare soil during the winter months. not because i think that is a good idea, but because Mom thinks this is how it has to be to look tidy. to me it looks sick. i want cover crops, i want to leave plant debris and mulches on top of the soil as it will protect from the wind and the rains and ...

if you can get it tilled quickly enough and get it planted with winter wheat or winter rye (the grain not the grass) it might get a chance to grow some before spring. then turn it under several weeks before your spring planting has to happen.

my own vegetable gardens have a few bugs here or there that i don't particularly like, but they are not annoying me badly enough i care to do much about them. i hand pick Japanese beetles here or there, but i'll never get them all.

i also don't think it a good idea to use pesticides or other biocides including many that people say are ok for organic crops. well, no, i like the various creatures i have around so i don't want to put something out in the gardens that might harm some of them that i care about. i'm willing to do things selectively and very targetted (manual removal only) or just change what i grow if i have to.

i also have areas in the gardens which are spaces used to protect the beneficial bugs during the off season since i have no cover on many gardens for the winter. as of yet i do not have aphid problems. i don't have too many other problems with too many bugs either. squash borers and squash bugs, yep, we got those, i try to grow resistant enough types and rotate plantings to different areas when the populations get to be too high.

I think too much is made about the beneficials. It crosses a certain point where in the deep heat here, we have an overabundance of bugs, fungi, bacteria and, well, basically everything. I learned that spending time sterilizing the patch was time well spent as it related to late season production. Bugs? Expose them, freeze them, till them up. Fungi, sunbeurn them, starve them, till in antifungals. Its not like long term success is even possible, but you can lighten the pathogen pressure for the duration of a tomato growth cycle for sure. I really love the biological tools like bT and spinsad we have now.

 

[so lucky]

Does anyone remember the name of that new biologic insecticide that has been introduced? For beetles and many other insects. Darned expensive if I remember correctly. Not spinosad.

Oh, and for cutworms, just a little twig stuck right up next to the stem will do the trick. Biodegradable, lol.

 

[so lucky]

@Beekissed I wish I had a good place for runner ducks. My garden fencing is probably not dog proof.

It's possible a cultivator is all I need. I need to do some reading up on these and on tillers, to see what is recommended where.

 

[valley ranch]

My garden has been getting to be way more trouble than it is worth the last few years so I have been trying to figure out what is wrong. I think one thing that is a major problem is the insects that I can't seem to get rid of. I have had pretty deep mulch, added to yearly, and I think insects use it for cover. And the weeds! Oh the weeds that manage to come up where the cardboard isn't!
Yesterday I was pulling up what ever dried flowers and veggie stems remained and burning trash. I decided to rake the whole garden bare and let it dry, freeze, air out for a while. Do you think this will help kill off a few critters?
I also have to get a tiller. I loaned out my tiller to someone a few years ago and now it doesn't work. I have been digging the rows by hand and I am getting too old to do that. So a tiller is needed. Also I need to be more pro-active on fighting weather issues.
If you all have any suggestions, I welcome them.
"Gardening" is part of my identity. If I can't, or don't have the energy or will power any more, it takes part of me away.
I probably will be adding to this thread as I figure out what to do.

Yeh, you may be right ~ deep mulch can be a comfortable place for bugs ~ have to go back are read to see if you've mentioned what kind of bugs ```

 

[catjac1975]

I think too much is made about the beneficials. It crosses a certain point where in the deep heat here, we have an overabundance of bugs, fungi, bacteria and, well, basically everything. I learned that spending time sterilizing the patch was time well spent as it related to late season production. Bugs? Expose them, freeze them, till them up. Fungi, sunbeurn them, starve them, till in antifungals. Its not like long term success is even possible, but you can lighten the pathogen pressure for the duration of a tomato growth cycle for sure. I really love the biological tools like bT and spinsad we have now.

My chicken are in the garden all winter. I swear by it for pest control for the following growing season.

 

[Beekissed]

My chicken are in the garden all winter. I swear by it for pest control for the following growing season.

Mine are too but they didn't seem to be able to do anything about the squash bugs....I think they hide a little deeper than the chickens could scratch. Or the mulch was too deep and heavy for the chickens to move...not sure.

The ducks, however, were able to move deeper into the mulch with the use of their bills, making deeper holes into the interior of the mulch. It was only after adding ducks to the mix was I able to detect any squash beetle and horn worm control.

Now, if I could effect any change on squash borers....that would be ideal!

 

[digitS']

Does anyone remember the name of that new biologic insecticide that has been introduced? For beetles and many other insects. Darned expensive if I remember correctly. Not spinosad...

... only slightly off-topic here, but still in the general category. One of the articles that was mentioned suggested Botanigard, the trade name for Beauveria Bassiana. It is a botanical insecticide that is a symbiotic fungus that kills off the insects like whiteflies, grasshoppers, potato bugs, many garden pests.
Boy it sure is expensive ...

?

 

[flowerbug]

Mine are too but they didn't seem to be able to do anything about the squash bugs....I think they hide a little deeper than the chickens could scratch. Or the mulch was too deep and heavy for the chickens to move...not sure.

The ducks, however, were able to move deeper into the mulch with the use of their bills, making deeper holes into the interior of the mulch. It was only after adding ducks to the mix was I able to detect any squash beetle and horn worm control.

Now, if I could effect any change on squash borers....that would be ideal!

has anyone tried orange/lemon/lime peels stacked around the seedlings as they emerge? or just put around the stems?

 

[so lucky]

?

Yes, I think that's what it is.
I remember someone making a remark about not wanting to introduce even more fungus into their garden. It appears to be something organic farmers might be interested in. Big crops. More than my teeny garden ventures.