Garden news
The garden is coming along. This is our first garden - we have several types of corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. The peppers (hot peppers and bell peppers) didn't grow. The tomatoes already are flowering and have several small green tomatoes. The beans appear to be ready to flower. The squash are getting vines. ...I know, I really need to weed the garden!!
The green beans seem to have a bug problem - it appears something is eating the leaves, but I've only seen a couple small black ants on the leaves. We really didn't want to use any pesticides on the garden... Any recommendations? 
4 comments:
We've found Diatomaceous earth to be very effective for some pests, but you might already be familiar with that. We just powder down the plants in question and it causes dehydration in hard-shelled insects and slugs. Of course, figuring out what the pest is might give you more options. A certain amount of holes can be just a cosmetic problem.
I just checked out diatomaceous earth - it sounds great & it's natural! Can you get it at any store, like Home Depot or Lowes? So far the bugs or whatever is eating the leaves hasn't stunted the growth of the beans - they still seem to be doing well.
What did you ever decide about the DE (diatomaceous earth)? I use it for my chickens (I sprinkle it on their roost and in their nest boxes to prevent mites and lice) and have used it in my garden as a topical application against various garden pests. You do need to be careful, however...1) it will kill the good bugs, too... 2)I get only agricultural or food grade DE...the kind at home depot will work, according to a knowledgable friend of mine, but if you're already concerned about chemical usage and safety issues, you might as well go for the safer stuff. I purchased mine at my local farm & feed store in a 50 lb bag.
Also, DE will not work once wet...it is only when dry that it cuts and slices the various bugs, so use it when you aren't watering or you aren't expecting rain.
You may have learned all this stuff since you wrote this post, but just in case you hadn't, I wanted to share what I've learned over the last year. :-)
Farmgirl - yes, we bought a bag of DE at a farm store. It was good to get rid of the garden bugs. We realized the rain washed it away, and we had periods of rain every day there for a while this summer. We didn't put the DE out every day, but maybe once weekly on the garden. I had heard it could be used on chickens/farm animals, too, and planned on using it when we get chickens next year. Thanks for your info - I appreciate it! It's good to learn from someone who's already figured things out firsthand!
-Lynn
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