Gardens - how to protect your crops naturally.

Nice thread!

Permaculture is the answer! Permaculture!


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[edit on 23-7-2010 by JimIrie]

I would also suggest getting a falcon,a large owl, a mountian lion (pesticide free) and some water moccasins. Dig a moat around your garden area and fill it up with mater. That is where the water moccasins will go. Put the mountian lion on your newly created little island and make the falcon fly around it durring the day and make the owl fly around durring the night. Check ebay, you might be able to find some cheap night vision gogles or a night vision scope. Because they mostly come out at night and these are pretty small creatures you can get a Derringer and put the night vision scope on it and a bayonet in case they get in close. You might even be able to find some old claymores to stop them before they even get into that water.
Almost forgot, you might have to buy a lot of cats to keep that mountian lion alive and you will need a tranquilizer gun to make him sleep when you go to pick your vegetables. Mountian lions do not like living on islands and he is not going to like you very much.

reply to post by zaiger


Hmmmm in that case there wouldn't be a garden because I couldn't get to it to plant it, weed it, water it, or harvest it so I wouldn't need any of the above.

reply to post by SeenMyShare


It would still be there and it would be safe too! You probably would want to build a remote controlled draw bridge, if you were feeling really crafty you could get a hot air baloon or a hover craft instead to get over the boat.

Tobacco juice can also be used as a natural pest repellent.

Fill a 1-gallon container with water.
Add 1 cup of tobacco to the water. The tobacco can be in any form, whether it be pure tobacco leaves, cigarettes or smokeless tobacco. Let the mixture sit for 24 hours, or until the water turns light brown.
Pour the water into a spray bottle. Spray the water on areas with pest problems once per week.

reply to post by SeenMyShare


My daughter wanted Morning Glories so I planted them on the fence around my garden.

When the japanese beetles and other insects came looking for a free meal
they started eating on the Morning Glories.

I had hundreds of these bugs on the Morning Glories but once they started eating they never moved! and my garden plants were completely free of insects. I later learned that Morning Glories produce some sort of
hallucinogenic drug.






[edit on 23-7-2010 by TriggerFish]

I love threads like this one. People around me seem to LOVE distributing Carbaryl (Sevin) everywhere -- even on fruiting plants!!! eek!

Okay, here's a tried and true remedy for white flies:

White flies are attracted to the color spectrum of what we perceive as yellow; They tend toward munching the pistils and stamen of yellow-flowering plants (melons, tomatoes, squash, cirtrus especially, etc.) and that prevents the plant from setting fruit.

Take a 1-foot X 1-foot or so piece of masonite, hardee board or plywood; shouldn't be thick, say 1/4" or thereabouts and paint it bright yellow. Cover it in clear grease (vaseline, grease) or shoot it with spray glue. If you use spray glue, put it on in one coat so as to not cover the yellow color.

Suspend this above your yellow-flowering plants. ETA: Suspend it so it can swing in the wind. They whiteflies perceive this as the mother of all flowers, and land on it. The first time I did this, the board was more white than yellow in a single day.

Scrape the dead whiteflies off and regrease. Rinse. Repeat. Yes, it attracts whiteflies that may have passed your crops by, but it also lures them away from your crops. It's a pretty natural way to deal with these flower-destroying little buggers.

CUTWORMS around Tomatoes: Cutworms tend toward ringing the base of a tomato plant. I take a 2" piece of old garden hose, slice it down the middle and wrap it around the tomato plant, pushing it into the soil. Keeps the cutworms at bay until you can spy them and maliciously squish their little invertebrate bodies between thumb and forefinger.

Yah. I'm violent like that with garden pests.

Companion planting WORKS. I use a lot of marigold around everything. Where I grew up in northern Idaho, the Native American (Shoshone) gardeners would plant corn first, then beans later, to climb up the corn, and ring the area with squash. Those three do well together, and........ I think they protect each other somehow, as that combination seems to really do well.

[edit on 23/7/10 by argentus]

reply to post by SeenMyShare


YAY!! Garden Talk!!

Great Post!! S&F!

I live in a condo, but I do have a respectable balcony garden with herbs, some flowers and peppers. Definitely nothing to the scale you guys are talking about! It took me quite some time to even learn how to keep my poor plants alive as it seems I was born with a black thumb... Over the past few years I have been doing much better and since I was able to grow an avocado tree for three years now from a seed, I started this year by planting seeds.

One of the things I have learned, especially with my balcony, is that I needed to study more about the bugs I have there! Since I have allowed the orb-weavers to stick around, I have had a lot less problems with bugs!



I first noticed whitefly eggs on the underside of the leaves of my Anaheim pepper plant three or so days ago, and again more of them on my Basil today. I have never seen one whitefly, just their eggs and strands. I was hoping that my helpful little army of insects would have taken care of all of my pests. I am now even noticing some aphids on my mandevilla flowers...

Sadly I can't plant other plants around to ward off the pests, So I guess it's a trip to the garden center for me to get some ladybugs and some praying mantis!

[Edited: Added picture]

[edit on 7/23/2010 by Sararainmaker]

Yarrow works well to attract good bugs that eat bad bugs.
Yarrow stops infections like gangrene, food poisoning, absceses, it is an amazing plant.
It is pretty, and it makes herbs with essential oils more potent.

Here is a list of plants that attract the good bugs.
And some good info on the way this works.

www.mountainvalleygrowers.com...

I've had good luck in planting hot peppers and marigolds around my garden. I have also managed to keep the deer out of the garden by putting up an electric fence with the wire 1 foot above the ground. I've yet to plug it in this year and still no deer problem. I've also read that if you put down chicken or rabbit wire flat around the outside of your garden it will keep many food seekers out since they don't like how it feels underfoot.
The only problem I have this year is potato bugs (destroyed 3 of my 12 plants).

Well i only grow carniverous plants so lack of bugs is more of a problem than anything. When it comes to white fly just remember, bleach and fire kills everything.

reply to post by zaiger


Somehow I think bleach and fire might ruin my basil plant...
I think for the moment I have it under control, plucking off the leaves, however they are an invasive species here... I just hope they don't start spraying malathion around. I just got my car repainted.

reply to post by Sararainmaker


I have this completely irrational fear of spiders that I simply can't explain. I was raised country and can hunt, garden, butcher, preserve, etc. yet if a spider comes into the house someone else must dispatch it. That said, there is a wonderful spider web with a LARGE spider in my garden that has been allowed to remain. As long as it doesn't touch me it will be allowed to continue living there

I love the balcony gardening idea. Have you seen those rack style growing tools? You could probably fit a number of them on your balcony even if its small. I'll try to locate the thread which someone posted about them and edit it into this one.

Edit: well I can't find the post which discussed but I did find the link to the concept on the web. The Windowfarms Project

[edit on 24/7/2010 by SeenMyShare]

(More pictures in the folder)

Nothing spectacular as you can see, but the plants, and working with them, is one of the most peaceful things I have ever done!

...Bad day? No problem, just work with the plants for a while!

I am still learning, and have a lot to learn, but I hope one day to have my own yard where I can have a proper garden!

Thank you for the link! That is amazing! Open-source hydroponic growing for plats! I love it! It definitely has me thinking!

~Rainy

[Edited: typo]

[edit on 7/25/2010 by Sararainmaker]

reply to post by Sararainmaker
I like the way you have your balcony set up.

Did you know you could grow cucumbers, pole beans and smaller squashes as well as peppers, tomatoes and peas from hanging baskets? You can grow larger squashes and melons from hanging baskets as well but you need to keep them low enough for the fruits to rest on the floor (on straw) or have shelving layered with straw to train them onto as they grow. The hanging weight would cause damage to the plant and the fruit would fall otherwise.

Originally posted by SeenMyShare
reply to post by zaiger

 

Hmmmm in that case there wouldn't be a garden because I couldn't get to it to plant it, weed it, water it, or harvest it so I wouldn't need any of the above.

Actually the falcon and owl is not a bad idea to keep the critters from hanging around eating your crops. One during the day one at night, though an eagle would be best but they don't hang around to long but they eat raccoons. But then again if your a cat person don't get a hawk or eagle they will eat the cats. So I guess it wont apply to you. But owls are cool none the less.

Mmm... look. These are mine. Like I said already the critters are polite and like to protect crops too. If they steal one they come back and finish it off before munching into the one next to it. I don't mind sharing with the meeces but you lot can get your own.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/110058638bfe.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by wigit


What about if I wear a mouse costume?

Those look REALLY nice!

reply to post by Sararainmaker


I have 4 big cats who eat mice, and a jack russell puppy who thinks she's a cat and eats the mice the cats catch. You've no chance ,

Hi! We push Hotel Soap Bars into the four corners of the garden. This
makes it smell like a person is there. My husband, dogs, and sons pee around the garden area. Gross, but it works. Keep a compost pile of freebies else where, nearby for the racoon. They are lazy and don't want to work at shucking the corn.