What's going on growers? It's James Pion coming to you live from Jersey. When it comes to pests, there is no mercy in the garden. Today, I'm going to share with you three effective ways to kill pests in your garden. Let's go. There's nothing worse than going out to the garden you have spent time and effort growing only to find that pests have moved in and are decimating your plants. If you find yourself in this situation, rest easy. I will share with you how to effectively fight back and take control of your garden again. When I first started gardening, like 15 years ago, I wanted to do everything completely natural. I didn't use any sprays, even organic ones. I didn't use any fertilizer and I didn't even water my garden. That first year I got a decent harvest, but as time has progressed, I've decided to be more handson. And as a result, my production just absolutely skyrocketed. One of the major changes was adopting some organic sprays to help reduce the damage from pests. Over the years, I have found some super good organic sprays that are highly effective and also safe to use in the garden. Years ago, before I started using organic sprays, I could not get consistent brasa production. I would get some cabbages that would reach the point of harvesting, but even those ones after I got them to harvesting and brought them inside, I'd kind of like slice open the cabbages and then the things would be full of worms. And let's just say that was a little bit off-putting. Then I learned about an incredible organic spray. This one right here, known as BT, and it made all the difference. I now can get consistent Brasa production. They're beautiful. They're healthy. They're delicious. And some of the cauliflower looks so amazing, it almost looks fake. The colors are just unbelievable. This Bt is organic and made from natural occurring soil bacteria. A cool thing about it is you could go out, spray it on your plants now and then you could technically go out in the same day and eat those leaves of those plants. I wouldn't do that and I definitely wash the leaves off first. But what I'm trying to say is it's safe for humans to use. Another cool thing about it is it's safe for the beneficials. The reason it is is because when it comes to this BT, in order for it to be effective, it has to be ingested by the pests. So something like your cabbage worm or your tomato horn worms, things that go out and eat the leaves of your plants is what it's effective on, which means you won't have to worry for things like bees. It won't bother them. Because the BT needs to be digested, it's most effective on caterpillars and the larae of pests. I use this spray more than any other one in my whole entire garden. Once spring comes and my brascas are looking nice, you'll start to see the cabbage white butterfly flying around. And if I don't have an insect netting to cover my plants, I go out there every seven days and make sure I spray my brasas with this BT because it's not harmful. It works really effective. And when I do this, I can guarantee myself a consistent brassa harvest. Safer Soap is another effective organic spray that I love using in the garden. It works especially good for softbodied insects like aphids, spidermitites, and white flies. The white flies really seem to show up at this time of the year. They're super annoying. They go after the brascas. They're always like just flying around and they're aggravating. This stuff works great for them. Just make sure that you actually spray the insects directly with this because you actually have to hit them and it works on contact. It breaks down their outer shell and causes them to like dehydrate. A cool thing about this is it's organic and it's safe to use up to the day of harvest, which is super convenient. It also won't negatively affect your beneficial insects as long as you don't spray them directly. One thing to note though is you need to make sure when you're using this spray and most other sprays that you get the bottom underside of the leaves because that's where a lot of the softbodied insects like to hang out the aphids and also the white flies. Safer soap works great and it's super easy to use. Just mix it in your sprayer with some water and then you're good to go. Another option for softbodied insects that's effective and also has some additional beneficial properties is the cold pressed neem oil. This stuff works well for softbodied insects. And the reason it has some additional properties that are advantages is because of the aidoractin in it. This stuff is a slow kill for insects and it also disrupts their hormones and their feeding. So, you want to spray this on your insects, hit them with like a direct contact if you can, and it won't kill them right away, but over the next few days, they will die off. And once you hit them, it'll really, you know, slow them down and essentially stop them from doing any feeding and will really stop them from doing any damage to your plants overall. The two of these are super effective. Which one you want to use is up to you. Another additional benefit of the neem oil is that it has some fungicidal properties. So it'll help with a little bit of you know fungus issues which is beneficial. Another thing about the neem oil is that it will work for a longer period of time. It has like it has more suppression than this one does be because of the aidirectin oil. There has some uh little bit of residual effect that's left on the leaves and that can continue to help with those pests. As opposed to the saver soap, this one works really quick, is effective and is mainly just for the softbodied insects. This one you get some extra effects. There's one thing that's super important though when buying neem oil. You want to get the cold pressed neem oil and it has to have the aida in it. That's the whole point of the neem oil and where you get all the beneficial uses from. Some of the premixed neem oils don't even have the aida oil. Don't waste your money on those. The best thing to do is buy some cold pressed neem oil, warm it up a little bit, and then mix it with water in your sprayer. But you want to add a dish soap that is safe, that has no degreaser and no fragrances. What this will do is it will help the oil and the water mix together so that you get a nice mixture to spray on those plants to keep them happy and healthy. Spinosad is another effective organic spray that you can use in the garden. I don't really end up using this one that much though because I prefer to use Bt and they kill similar pests. for instance, your caterpillars and your larae. But there are some additional pests that the spinoad will kill that the BT really won't be super effective against like the Colorado potato beetle and also flea beetles. Not to mention this will also kill some of your leaf miners and your thris. There's one thing you want to be careful about though when it comes to the spinad. It's more broadsp spectrum than the BT is and it could also be harmful to the beneficial insects like bees. So, when spraying this one, make sure you go out and spray it at night when the bees aren't out. This way, it can dry on those leaves because when it dries, it's not um dangerous for any of those beneficial insects like bees. So, just make sure when using this one that you use it at night. The same goes for the neem oil. You want to make sure you're using that later in the evening and you're not harming any beneficial insects because that will actually cause some damage both the neem oil and the spinosad if you spray the beneficials directly. The next spray is one that's only to be used as a last resort. It is very powerful and it will actually harm the beneficial insects if you spray them. It is organic though and it's known as pythine. This one is made from the dried flowers of the chrysanthemum with their insecttoidal properties. That's what makes this up. And you would think, oh, that's made of flowers. That must be pretty safe for a lot of the things. Well, this stuff is actually super powerful and you need to be careful when using it in your garden cuz like I mentioned, it's harmful to the beneficials. This thing is a broadspectctrum one. It has very strong knockdown power as long as you hit the insects directly. you need to hit them directly because when you do what it does is it like it it affects them their nervous system and it just essentially kills the bugs very quickly like within minutes or hours. You want to make sure that you're spraying this one like the others at in the evening so you're not being harmful to the bees and when it's on the leaves it will sort of like dry out quickly and it won't have any residual effects like the neem oil does. So after it's kind of dried your the bees and stuff are all safe. Just make sure again you're using this one as a last resort because it is so strong. And this spray, it's effective on a lot of the the pests that I shared with you previously, but it's also effective on the cucumber beetles, the adults. So, if you hit them, this will kill them. So, it's effective for that. It's also effective for the young squash bug nymphs, but it's not effective on the adult squash bugs. They're thick skeletons. They're just kind of hard to penetrate. Another thing is this isn't going to kill the eggs on the underside of your leaves. So when you see those eggs on the underside, if you hit them with this, it won't kill them. The best idea is just to remove those leaves. Again, though, this is a last resort. This stuff's powerful. Just make sure you're using this only when it's completely necessary. A lot of the other sprays that I shared with you earlier, they're like safer to use in your garden, and you should use those first. Only go to this one again as a last resort. These are the sprays that I use in my garden. All organic and all highly effective and ones that I would feel safe telling you guys you should be using in your garden because to mitigate a lot of that pest damage just makes gardening so much more fun overall. There are some other sprays you can make yourselves like household ones. For instance, something like a garlic spray that would work good for like to prevent pests from coming after your stuff but it's not going to like kill the pests. There's a lot of good preventative and protective sprays. We got a big gust of wind coming in here, so let me just let me just get my back to the wind for a second. There are a lot of good preventative ones. My favorite alltime preventative spray, hands down, is surround kaolin clay. This is a protectant. And what it does is it just forms a layer of protection around the plant or the fruit and it first it masks the plant so it makes it hard for the pest to actually find the fruit or the plant. then it also forms that layer. So just say you have a pest that wants to go in and take a bite out of the leaf of one of your plants, then it's gonna that insect is going to get a mouthful of clay. Or let's just say uh insect wants to come and lay eggs on your plants. Well, the clay gums up the sensory organs and the reproductive organs on the plant on the pest. So the clay just kind of just really messes them up in general. I love using first preventative measures like an insect netting or and a the surround kale and clay. But if for some reason those aren't enough and the pests get to my and that pest get to my plants, this these right here are my gotos. An additional effective way to kill pests in the garden is something that I kind of consider to be preventative, but it does also kill the pests and it's what is known as datimacious earth right here. So, it's a fine powder which is made of crushed fossilized algae. To us, it feels like a really really just soft fine powder, but underneath the microscope, this stuff is very sharp and very spiky. And how it works is it physically cuts into the outer shell of the insect and then that cuts it open, causes them to dehydrate and then die within like a day or two. There are some limitations to this though. This won't be effective on some of your flying insects because the insects literally need to walk through it or crawl through it to be effective. Another thing is once it rains and it gets damp, it's not as effective either. So after using it and it rains, you're going to have to go back out and reapply again. What you could do is sprinkle this around the base of your plants so when pests try to come in and walk by and walk up to your plants to go attack them. This actually cuts them up and kills them. Or you could just like sprinkle it around your plants and on some of the leaves. Essentially anywhere you're going to have insects walking around where it can cut into them, dehydrate them, and just kill them off. The next practice that doesn't seem like it would be super effective, but in reality it actually is, would be to just go out there by hand and remove the pests or crush them yourself, another thing you could do is just grab like a handheld vacuum, go out there and vacuum up some of the pests. Certain pests like squash bugs, sprays aren't like super effective on them. They've got that thick armor on the outside of them and also they're not like on the plants all the time. Same thing with squash vine bores. They'll come the squash vine bores, they'll lay eggs in your plant and then leave. So to hit them with a spray, you'll actually have to kind of get lucky on timing. So it's pretty effective to go out there and just remove the plants by remove the pests by hand when you see them on your plants. More importantly is right in here. What you need to do is monitor your plants and make sure that you don't have any eggs on the underside of your leaves. Right here, you'll notice squash bugs laid eggs right there. and we've waited a little bit too long to remove them and now the squash bugs have hatched. This is not what we want. What we need to make sure is that we're not providing habitats for the pests to thrive in. Right here, you'll notice we've got a kale plant. It's got some harlkin bugs on it. It's got some white flies on it. And it's seen better days. We're in late July, though, so we're past the prime for this kind of kale plant. What I don't want to do is take my new brascas that I'm going to be growing in fall and then transplant them in the garden right next to this kale plant because what will happen is all the pests that are on this plant right here and the new pests that will hatch like you can see some eggs right here. These things will go from this older plant and transition right over to our new younger plant that's highly susceptible to pest damage when it's so young. So, what I like to do is first take my brascas, remove them from the garden, and make sure I have like a couple weeks of a grace period where there's really no brasas in the garden. This way, the brasas that I'm starting in fall, then when they come into their spot, there's not going to be just like pests around everywhere that can that are going to attack them right away. And when my bras are young, I'll make sure to protect them with an insect netting. This way, I'm not providing a habitat for these pests to just kind of take over. Keeping a neat garden is important to help reduce pest populations, especially if you live in the east coast like me when it comes to your fruit because there is a horrible pest known as the plum curculio. This thing is just terrible. It'll decimate your fruit trees. In one night, one plum cculio can go out and cut into hundreds of fruit and lay eggs in that fruit. It lays eggs in the fruit and then the eggs hatch on the inside, start eating the inside of the fruit. then that drops to the ground. We need to make sure we're taking this fruit then removing it and throwing it in the garbage. If we don't, we won't break up that pest life cycle. Then the plumculio will hatch in here, then go down into the soil. If you live in a warm region, they'll come back out again for the second time in the season and attack your your fruit again. Or they'll just stay in the ground and then come out when it starts to cool off and like hide in the leaves to overwinter in there. Regardless, you will just allow them to keep, you know, proliferating more and more in your garden. So, you want to get out there and remove this fallen fruit cuz it will help considerably when it comes to pest issues. Another way to kill pests in the garden is by setting up the scenario where the insecttovores do the work for you. There are some great beneficial insects that you could draw in that will help keep the pests at bay and just help you deal with them a lot better. Some of the great beneficial insects are ladybugs, lace wings, praying mantis, and even parasitic wasps. Drawing in things like dragonflies is helpful as well. Even though they won't really go after some of the pests in the garden, they'll still go after and eat a lot of those mosquitoes, and that's helpful for us in the garden. So, we can spend more time out here without getting just eaten alive by the mosquitoes. One more additional way to help combat pests is by using trap crops. You'll notice right here, I use ammeth as a trap crop. It's super effective for the cucumber beetles. And if you come in and notice, look how much the cucumber beetles have really decimated these plants and have gone after it. And they've avoided my cucumbers, which are right next to me here. So, that's really nice. Another cool thing you can do is plant this amaranth. It'll draw the cucumber beetles in. when you see the cucumber beetles really heavily on here and the plant's like infested. You could grab your pythine and spray those cucumber beetles. So, it's almost like you're baiting the cucumber beetles to come to your plant, then hitting them with that knockdown spray to kill them. It's effective. It works great and it help keeps helps keep the pests away from your prized plants. That's today's video, growers. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. I hope you feel more equipped and you feel like you've got your arsenal set up to go after these pests and attack them and make it so they're not decimating your garden. When it comes down to it, when pests are going after your plants, even though I don't like to look at nature like this, you need to treat it as a war because they're coming. They're going to keep building their soldiers unless you stand the line, stand your ground, and just fight them back. That's what it's about. I hope a lot of these sprays help you. They're organic. They're ones I use in the garden and I've got no problem just going out snacking on my food right right out of the beds so they're safe to use and I think that feels really nice. I want to mention to check out the community over at teamgrow us. We have you know I think by this time 3,000 members on there. We're all coming together sharing what we know, sharing what we're doing to help get inspiration from each other, encouragement, education. It's just become a very valuable resource for everyone on there to be able to just tap into the community and, you know, be able to just invest into the community, too. If you have a lot of knowledge, get on there, answer some questions for people. Your direct help can make it so someone who's never got a harvest before can taste their first cucumber, their first tomato, and uh that is powerful. I also wanted to say to check out the merch over at team grow.us. This is my favorite new design. It has to do with patterns in nature. We've got the fractal pattern. Both all roots, branches, our lungs, rivers, and the veins and leaves all follow this pattern. And pattern application and recognition is important important in permaculture. It allows us to tap into what already nature is doing and use it to our advantage. And you know, that works out pretty nice. Sort of like using insecttovores as part of our army to help fight back the pests. I also wanted to send a thank you to one of our new channel members, Michael Walters. Thanks for being a part of Team Grow. Thanks for having your hand in everything we're doing out here. It's an absolutely beautiful day. We got a nice little breeze to it. It's not super humid and the sun's in and out. It's just I feel so blessed to be in the garden and so blessed that you guys are coming along for the journey. Hit the subscribe button, hit the like button, throw a comment down below. We'll be back to you with another one real soon. We out.