In article >,
"Marie Dodge" > wrote:

> "Isabella Woodhouse" > wrote in message
> ...
> > In article >,
> > "Marie Dodge" > wrote:
> >
> >> "Isabella Woodhouse" > wrote in message
> >> ...

> >> Two of our gardens are still producing. The west garden (squash,
> >> peppers, eggplants and tomatoes) went down to the spider mites.
> >> Little is left. The string beans were harmed by the organic
> >> insecticides (Organicide and Need Oil) and some died.
> >
> > I've seen Organocide (fish & sesame oils) used for blackspot & powdery
> > mildew on roses which don't seem to mind oily compounds used on them
> > even regularly. But I honestly don't know how well beans, which are
> > kind of fuzzy plants by nature, tolerate oil applications.
>
> Many of them didn't but nothing else was working people recommended. Peppers
> don't like the oils either. I lost one Pimento pepper plant. Others dropped
> a few leaves. The toms and eggs didn't seem to mind though. Neem Oil was
> useless but Organicide did finish off most of the white fly and a goodly
> number of spider mites. The west garden plants were so severely damaged by
> the insects, spiders and sprays I doubt any will make a recovery and produce
> anything worth harvesting. Our first frost is 7 to 8 weeks away. The heat
> and drought isn't helping matters any. I'm glad I have 3 gardens. Next year
> there will be 4. If one fails there will be the others......
>
> > We haven't had to use any this year but we've used Neem oil in the
> > past and never had it damage anything.
>
> It doesn't kill anything off either. It doesn't do what they claim it does.

What specific claim was that? Neem oil is a better preventive than a
cure. It does not usually work by outright killing insects (like
Malathion or Sevin); it's more of a disruptor of the natural life cycle
of certain pests and helps to keep them from reproducing. It certainly
does not work instantly on crops that are already severely compromised,
like yours.

> If I hadn't wasted weeks with organic pesticides that didn't work I wouldn't
> have lost the garden. By the time I became convinced Neem Oil and Rotenone
> were useless it was really too late.

I read your posts in rec.gardens.edible where numbers of people gave you
lots of prudent suggestions, most of which you rejected, sometimes with
antagonism toward so-called organic measures. You were dosing your
severely compromised plants with at least four or five different things
including some extremely toxic poisons that are known to kill a large
number of different helpful insect species. And yet you seem so certain
that it was the organic methods which ruined your garden and not the
spider mites, white fly, squash vine borers, or anything else.

> ...Organicide was the last thing on the list to try. It smells
> terrible and doesn't pour well. It goes everywhere when you try and
> pour it, adding to the stink. And that is also wasteful.

Organocide is supposed to be applied as a spray. It stinks because it
has fish oil in it. If you have difficulty with that smell, I'd
recommend against ever using blood meal.
[...]
> > One problem with using mainstream insecticides like the Sevin and
> > Malathion you previously noted is that they are broad spectrum,
> > extremely toxic, and also kill predators which feast on some of the
> > pests you mentioned.
>
> Apparently there were no predator insects to feed on them or they wouldn't
> have reached the numbers they did that stopped production dead in it's
> tracks, turning the plants into those pics you saw. That was the damage
> from the WFs and SMs, not the insecticides.

And how many years have you been using Malathion, Sevin, and the like?

> > Once the natural balance is destroyed, it can take
> > several years to restore it. I sure hope you can resolve some of these
> > issues and have more fun with your gardens.
>
> Apparently there was no natural balance to start with - see above.

I recall you saying you've had this property for over 20 years.

Isabella
--
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust"
-T.S. Eliot