Ep 194. The Truth About Organic Pest Control for Your Garden

0:00Hey friend, today I'm talking about a not-so-fun topic, and that is Organic Pest Control in the Garden. You're listening to the Homestead Challenge podcast where no pressure homesteading fits into your real life. I'm Brittany, kind of Crunchy Mama, and City Homesteader, helping you grow, make, and prepare without the burnout, because I have been there. But I've also discovered a way to integrate homesteading into my modern, busy life in a way that feels balanced, fulfilling, and joyful. Whether you're working with a backyard, a farm, or even just a balcony, pour yourself a cup of coffee or homegrown herbal tea and settle in. It's time to dig in and grow. So I have definitely recently had some issues with pests in the garden, and it really got me thinking about when do I need to step in? When should I let things go? Is spraying organic stuff really organic? Is that going to harm me? Is that going to harm the pollinators?

1:05Going down this spiral that I constantly go down, and I'm sure that if you are listening to this episode, you've gone down some of those spirals as well. But I've done my best to compile what I've learned over the past few years, and I just want to talk about what I do personally in my own garden. This episode is, yes, to give you a little bit of information about how you can use organic pest control, but more so about sharing what I use, and really just getting you thinking about when you personally are going to decide to use those things in your garden. And it is early in the gardening season as I'm reporting this, but I actually had a pest issue on my seedlings inside my house, which is super gross, because if you've been following along, I actually put my seedlings in my dining room this year, and there were bugs, and that's horrifying. Ew, ew, guys, ew, disgusting. So I definitely had to step in. So my options were to deal with it or to throw them all away.

2:06And several times now I've wanted to throw them all away because they do keep coming back, but the problem has lessened, so I will be talking a little bit later about exactly what I used to deal with those, and they were aphids. And they are on my pepper plants, which is strange because it's not generally a space for aphids to go. And it's so interesting because all of my seeds are stacked in rows together, all of them are in the same soil, so I don't know why that's the only tray or seriously one tray affected. So it's very interesting, but before we get into what I am doing here, I do want to talk a little bit about what is organic pest control. What does that mean? And I do want to break some illusions for you, because as we all try to go organically, well, maybe not all of us, but a lot of us are doing that. And I do want to say that organic gardening doesn't necessarily always mean harmless, and just because something's natural doesn't mean it's always safe, like the products that I used are organic and natural, but if I drank them, that would be a problem.

3:18So there's definitely some things to think about there. And of course, we all know that the word chemical does not necessarily mean it's bad. We know, I hate that argument when people say, like, oh, you're going against chemicals, but you're just you didn't learn chemistry in school, because not all, you know, everything's a chemical. Yes, but colloquially, we now use the term chemicals to mean toxic and harmful chemicals, not good chemicals, right? That's just the words that we say. Anyway, organic pesticides are still designed to kill something, but we can feel a little bit better about where they came from, and potentially their effects on us and our use in our garden. But they're still killing things. So they can still be putting your ecosystem out of whack. They can still be killing pollinators if you're spraying them directly.

4:18A lot of them are for specific pests, but they're also not like, you know, super specific. So that's absolutely a thing to think about, but it just really depends on your problem, the way that you apply it. My problem was inside. And so I'm pretty sure that inside my house in March, when I sprayed, there were no pollinators that I needed to worry about, right? So you really have to weigh those options for yourself. And so examples from my own garden, the only things that I have used are, well, I'm going to talk a little bit about the supernatural ways, which are like not buying any products, but just doing things by hand. And I'm going to be talking about a little bit of some different levels of organic pesticides and removing pests in your garden in a little bit here, but I just want to say what I personally use. Let's just get it out of the way. One name oil. This is what I used on my aphid issue. I use that. I also use a spinosad spinosad.

5:24That's the Captain Jack's dead bug. I have used that outside before. I have not used it yet this year inside or anything. And I do use a fungicide, which is, I guess, for another episode, but I eat like the arbor brand. If I had it all, I might buy all the arbor brand. It's AR, B-E-R. I'm not going to lie, the bottle's really pretty. So if you see it, it looks organic and natural, which we all know is a huge trap that we can fall into. But anyway, these are products that I have deemed okay to use in a small amount, but I often like to see if things go away naturally. Or if it's towards the end of the year, I might just throw away something. It really just depends. So your organic gardening in your garden is going to depend on where you're at in the season, what you're growing. If you're over it or not, because sometimes we're just over it, right?

6:25And what you deem as okay, because there are some organic gardeners that will not use neem oil whatsoever. And that is fine, if that's the level that you have for yourself. So I want to go through some of the levels here of what I would say are the ways to kind of go about this. So something that we can all do, no matter what level of organic you are, is prevention. So obviously this is not perfect because I still try to do these things and pests still come. But one, keeping great soil health, keeping good airflow, but sometimes not too much airflow. It's like just the right amount. And then there's companion planting and trap crops. I have several episodes here on companion planting and I have a companion planting guide over on the homestead challenge.com, just search companion and you will find that there.

7:25There actually are beneficial plants that can help you repel pests or potentially attract beneficial insects that are going to be eating the ones that you do not want. These are really simple things. I'm not going to go through them all in this episode. Like I said, I already have other information about that. But you've probably heard planting basil near tomatoes planting marigolds everywhere. I seriously have them everywhere. And then bringing in beneficial bugs with herbs like dill, cilantro, yaro can really help. I love to plant all different herbs throughout the entire garden unless they spread like mint. Don't do that. But other things, putting it just here and there. I also like chives and onions for this. It repels. They repel a lot of things. They can really help. I am more new to trap crops. So I'm not really an expert here. But last year, I definitely planted a ton of nasturtiums. They're supposed to trap the aphids. So the aphids eat your nasturtiums instead of eating your vegetables.

8:35And nasturtiums are just really pretty. So I highly recommend everybody grows them. They're also really fun too because the flowers are edible. I'm not like a huge flower eater, but they can make a charcuterie board look really pretty or if you're into that, you can put them in your salad. Either way. So definitely recommend those. It says that like radishes can attract flea beetles. I don't know much about that. I know there are more trap crops. So if you do find that you have a specific bug problem, just research trap crops for said bug. And that might be able to help you by planting those near your issue. So that's definitely a great way to get started is to just kind of do things right from the beginning. Definitely the companion planting I find in my own garden that it does seem to really help. It probably cuts down on the amount that I'm able to grow. Obviously if you're growing things as a farmer wood in the field, you can probably get more of a yield.

9:35But for me, having the herbs and the flowers mixed in with all the vegetables is part of the vibe, part of the cottage vibe I'm going for and really does seem to help with the bug issues. I'm scared about talking about this episode, by the way, I feel like a little bit like I'm jinxing myself. So let's hope that that's not true. I haven't had a lot of problems until I've had this problem here right in my dining room. And in addition to the name oil, I guess that would kind of be on this level as well, or I guess this is level two, which would be light intervention would be sticky traps. So between the nats and then the adult aphids fly, I put up these yellow sticky traps all over and guys they are catching so many bugs. If you even have a net issue in your house with like house plants, put up some sticky traps and you'll be horrified. I did not think I had them any flying bugs at all. I didn't notice them elsewhere in the house. But once I put up these sticky traps, I'm actually horrified about it. And they have nothing on them. They're literally just like big yellow stickers. But man, do they work.

10:40So other forms of light intervention might be hand removal. So a lot of people will do this with tomato hornworms. I only saw one last year. I'm knocking on wood guys. I am actually a little grossed out by that kind of bug. I'm fine with spiders, like truly fine with spiders. I guess think bugs in my house sometimes those are fine. I'm not that grossed out by things, but for some reason, wormy things I can't. I cannot. I don't know why. That's why I don't do worm composting. I want to, but I can't. It's just not my thing. Anyway, somebody's going to be picking the tomato hornworms off though if I find them. Maybe I will put my kids on that duty and you can get rid of them that way. And then next, you can spray things with water, even aphids. In beginning, if my situation would have been so bad, just doing a hard spray with water can actually really help. So that's super easy.

11:41And then kind of the next level would be doing a very simple at home spray. The most classic one that you might see online would be to get rid of aphids or mites. And that is a simple soap spray. It's a court of water to one to two teaspoons of liquid soap. Ideally, not a degreaser, just a regular soap. I don't actually know what would. Like because all dish soap is degreaser usually. So I don't know a mild liquid soap. It says I've never done this. So do what you will. But it should get rid of those things for you as well. And then your next level is going to your organic products, like I've talked about. That's your name oil, your insecticidal soap, the jacks, dead bug, or BT. I should mention here as well one other thing I use in my yard, but not in my garden is diatomaceous earth. I actually use it around the outside edges of my kids sandbox when it gets ants.

12:44And I hate, I don't know, it's so weird to talk about this kind of thing because it's really creepy. But diatomaceous earth, they like eat it and it like, it's like shards of glass and it like kills them that way, which is horrifying. That's horrifying. I'm sorry to talk about it, but that's what that does. And it is not harmful to humans. I don't know much about if you ate it. My kids aren't at the age where they're going to be eating sand anymore. But so I have put that around the outside of our sandbox for sure for the ant issues. You can actually put cinnamon for ants as well. So if you're looking for something a little more natural, put cinnamon in your sandbox. Just make sure nobody's rubbing it in their eyes because just because something's a plant doesn't mean it can't hurt you, right? Anyway, those are the organic products that I really know about and have used. And that's probably all I ever would use. I just, if something's fully covered in bugs, it's probably going to go if it's in my outside garden.

13:46I'll do a light spray a couple of times if it doesn't work is gone. And then of course, your next level would be conventional pesticides, which I'm not going to talk about because we are not doing that here. We're just not. So when a lot of go when to step in. You can let it go if the damage is probably just cosmetic. I've done this before I have some ugly leaves. I'll just tear off the leaves if they have the bugs on them even better and they'll go away. If the plant is super established, it's probably okay. And if you're okay with some loss and you're at the end of your season, then that's kind of when to go. But step it in when it's your seedlings because those are going to die super fast if they have any kind of bug issue. When you're at infestation is exploding, when your plant health is just dying or you're going to lose your whole crop, you can definitely feel free. If you deem it okay for your garden to step in.

14:47So let's just talk about here your home garden versus big ag. And so is it really okay to spray these things at home for our health versus the pesticides we hear about on large scale agricultural crops at home. We're usually using like very small scale exposure. Like I said, I use these things. I don't know, four days out of the year, maybe, like maybe, maybe a week, probably less. I'm using it in a control application, usually outside. It's just very low, low risk for anything to happen when you're using it so infrequently. The biggest biggest issues besides being a lot less natural with large ag are the repeated exposure. It's just sprayed on a level that is not something that you're ever going to get by spraying in your yard. It's really bad for workers who work there and are repeated exposure with that.

15:50And over time, there is an environmental buildup because they repeatedly spray the same thing on the same ground over and over again. So the concern isn't them just necessarily spraying it once. It's just that repeated exposure. So of course, we know that those pesticides that they might be spraying in conventional agricultural by the EPA and the World Health Organization, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, it's pretty clear that they're linked to neurological effects, hormone disruption, increased cancer risk, not good things. But most of those are still found in repeated exposure. So farm workers, applicators, people living close by, which of course we don't want to support that anyway. So whether it is coming into our home via conventional produce or not, that's just never a good thing.

16:51We don't want anybody exposed to that, not ourselves and not other people, of course. So what I have deemed for my house is that by spraying a few natural things a couple times a year to save some of my plants, I am okay with that. I have deemed it safe for my family and you may decide differently for your family and that is absolutely okay. But do know that your exposure level is dramatically lower than any of the studies on pesticides for conventional agriculture. Something that I do want to mention, of course, like I said before, just because it's organic doesn't mean that it's necessarily super safe. Neem oil can severely irritate your eyes and skin and we definitely don't want to inhale it and never ingest it. The spinosad is toxic to humans and it is a nervous system toxin for insects, but I don't know much about its nervous system effects on humans, something to think about.

18:03The good thing about your home organic sprays though is that they do break down faster than conventional pesticides. Of course, we use them less frequently and they have a much lower toxicity to humans, but they do still require that careful handling and definitely can still cause a couple effects if you use it the wrong way. So overall, if you're really trying to reduce your family's exposure even to natural organic pesticides, which they probably almost definitely use as well in organic agriculture that you're purchasing from the store is to wash your produce don't over spray anything if you are spraying spray when it's not super windy so it doesn't drift on other things avoid breathing the mist directly and of course follow the directions on the label. I cannot eliminate every possible exposure to everything in my own household it would stress me out way too bad and honestly I'm kind of getting sick of going down all the rabbit holes at this point we all know what we know and sometimes you just got to do what you got to do and that is absolutely okay.

19:15So when I had aphids all of my seedlings I used name oil I used the sticky traps before I eat these peppers way later on they will be washed but of course I probably won't even have the same leaves going on by the time these are full on pepper plants hopefully they get that far. I hope that this episode brought you a little bit of clarity and maybe a little bit of peace of mind that it is okay to spray if you need to just take the same precautions as you would if you're buying anything from the store. Of course that doesn't mean I'm not always perfect because of course I eat cherry tomatoes directly from the garden like all the time and you probably are too. It is what it is anything that you home grow organically or not is going to be better it is going to be healthier it is going to be less toxic than anything you could be buying from the store. So friends I want to know have you had any big pest control issues how did you deal with it organically do you have any home remedies that you love to use that I don't know about please share any recipes for those over in our Facebook group we would love to see you there until next time.

20:27Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of the homestead challenge I hope you're feeling inspired to take the next step on your homesteading journey. If you've enjoyed today's episode please leave me a written review it helps others find the podcast and I love to read what you have to say it means so much to me. Let's connect on Instagram at Brittany L Gibson share your favorite takeaways ask questions or suggest topics for future episodes. Want to dive deeper join the homestead challenge community over on Facebook to connect with other city and suburban homesteaders just like you. Remember every small step is progress keep growing and I'll see you next time.