safe home made pest control

[Holachicka]

Hi all, I started noticing that my cucumber plants are getting lots of holes in their leaves, and my tomato plants are getting munched on too... I was wondering if anyone had any home made sprays that they like to use to keep pests off? I'm short on cash, so I can't go buy anything right now... But I have sevin dust, I just don't want to kill the bees!

 

[patandchickens]

It would be real helpful to identify the culprits first.

The main thing that comes to mind vis-a-vis tomato leaves being munched is tomato hornworms -- they tend to totally defoliate a sprig of leaves at a time, and hide during the day so they can be tougher to spot (especially when they are still small -- but even the bun-length ones can be surprisingly wily). Best and cheapest control for hornworms is handpicking (during the day with sharp eyes and some time invested, or at night with a headlamp) and feed 'em to your chickens, who will go BERZERK.

Squash damage could be a variety of things, can you post a pic?

GOod luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Holachicka]

Here is a pic of my cucumbers. I saw an itty bitty caterpillar on the tomatoes, fed him to the quail...

 

[journey11]

I swear if you bend down close, you can hear those hornworms munching away!

They occur in very isolated numbers, so it's easiest just to handpick them. It will look like the DEER have munched leaves off your tomatoes, that's how BAD they are. They are quick about it too. You'll see their dark droppings below the branch they are on. After a couple days of picking and squishing, they don't come back.

If you see one with white eggs attached to it's back, leave him alone. A predatory wasp is using him to hatch her babies. They'll dispatch it themselves. And you'll have less hornworms next year!

 

[Holachicka]

So it's the hormworms most likely eating both my cucumbers and tomatoes? *sigh* time to get out the headlamp... the chickens are going to love me!