Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Smittyctz6 <cityhomesteader@gmail.com>]

I have to agree with that.. I rarely spray anything in the vegetable garden proper Only my wife stuff, because she grows roses and things that are not natural. We get aphids and I won't allow here to spray them, because right there next to them are Hover fly larva, lady bug larva, lacewing larva, and small mummified aphids that are housing a baby parasitic wasp.  All attracted to the garden with cewrtian plants I have learned attract the adults of these. Coriander, chamomile, fennel, dill, mints, yarrow,bee balm, etc..

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 7:39 AM, Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us> wrote:

kate spinner wrote:
> Seems like neem oil is being touted as a vegetable pest cure all. Does
> anyone know whether this is true and whether is it used with any
> success in organic agriculture?

It's been years (decades, actually) since I used neem oil. My biggest
question about it at the time was how limited it was in its
impact--whether non-target species would be knocked off as well.

I stopped being interested in neem (or rotenone, or pyrethrin, or any
other "organic" way to kill insects as a way of dealing with competition
for my crops) when I made the amazing discovery that I didn't have to
kill *anybody* to harvest my crops--indeed, the solution to insect
problems was: More insects!

The story is at
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Organic-Gardening-Beneficial-Insects.html

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Virginia
www.themodernhomestead.us

A person dependent on somebody else for everything from potatoes to opinions may declare that he is a free man, and his government may issue a certificate granting him his freedom, but he will not be free. He is that variety of specialist known as a consumer, which means that he is the abject dependent of producers. How can he be free if he can do nothing for himself? What is the First Amendment to him whose mouth is stuck to the tit of the "affluent society"?  ~Wendell Berry

_______________________________________________
Livingontheland mailing list
Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland

-- 
Bruce Smith
InHisThyme Homestead 

@{--+----+------+------------

A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul.  ~Author Unknown