Organic Pest Control - request for suggestions and strategies

Hello everyone!

Going to take my first stab at farming this year, beginning with a .5 acre vegetable garden, which will eventually be expanded to 1.5-2 acres. I'd like to avoid pesticides at all costs, will be using insect netting and the like. Came here to ask about planting beneficial flowers/hedgerows to relieve insect pressure.

Some info about the area: the property is located in a 5a-5b zone (Innisfil, Ontario), 22 acres of arable land and 24ish of protected wetland. Soybean crop and glyphosate dominate the surrounding landscape (our property had been used to cultivate soybean for a decade or so before we purchased it), although we do have a 5-7 kilometer stretch of bush which terminates at our property. The soil is towards the clayish side, but nothing too severe.

I'd like to know what species to plant, how to plant them, the whole shebang...Would like to attract beneficial birds as well. Would the birds eat the beneficial insects though? lol

Regards, Ahsun

PS: In the first year I plan to have 3 beehives, 10 hens or so, and the .5 acre garden. In the future we plan to add a 3-4 acre pasture, acres of an assortment of berries, orchards, and eating grapes. Thought i'd add this information in case we could plan ahead in terms of pest control.

It's been a couple of decades since I stopped poisoning my fields. Since then I  stopped applying even organic treatments. I have learned to watch varieties, and to plant varieties that are less susceptible to bugs. For example, if I grow spinach with krinkly leaves, little worms take up residence in the puckers. So I only grow smooth leaved spinach. If I grow early maturing cabbages, I can harvest them before the cabbage worm population gets too large. Some varieties of apple trees are bug magnets, while others hardly ever get a worm. I have learned to eat bug larvae. Can't even tell that they are there in a cherry unless I look for them. I've had good success with season shifting: Planting a crop in the fall if bugs take it out in the spring. The deer eat my muskmelons if I grow them in a certain field. So I grow muskmelons in a different field. I grow all my own seed. If a plant can successfully deal with the insect populations on my farm, then it's offspring are also likely to be able to successfully deal with them.

Hi Ahsun, welcome to permies. May I suggest seeing if you can find wildflower seeds native to your region, as your bees will not only appreciate that but from what I've learned wild flowers also provide good habitat for beneficial predatory insects. I, like Joseph, stopped applying organic pesticide treatments and just let nature find a balance. It was the year after the year I quit using organic pest controls that I really noticed a healthy population of bugs like green lacewings, ladybugs and their larvae, and others in my garden keeping things in check. This spring, I cast 5lbs of tennessee native wildflower seeds in a 7000 sq ft area next to my garden with the intention of attracting and helping honey bees and native pollinators, and learned I am also providing a good habitat for other beneficial insects as well. While we're discussing pests, I used to think pests were everywhere and attacked all crops looking for meals, but I would learn that's not necessarily the case. Pests feast on plants that aren't at their most vigorous healthy state, and will absolutely infest weak and sick plants. Interestingly, sick plants can emit pheromones to attract pests to come devour them, as all a part of natures balance so healthy plants survive to make and drop seeds and sicks plants don't. Healthy soil grows healthy plants that will experience less pest pressure. I've been working on improving my soil for years now and while I likely will never achieve the perfect utopian soil, I'm growing healthier plants that have less problems than plants I grew 7 or 8 years ago. I'm also planting some aromatic herbs scattered about my garden as it is my understanding some fragrant plants like rosemary, thyme, cilantro, mint (if I can keep it under control) and others can deter some undesirable insects as well. Hope this helps!

As Kola Joseph Lofthouse and James have mentioned, it is best to have healthy plants first, they can fend off the pests.

Things that make good companion plantings are; marigolds, rosemary, cilantro and citronella.
The issue with using companion plants is that you need them near the plants they are supposed to protect.
That means all around the perimeter and amongst your food plants.
Just having largish plantings of wild flowers near your food garden helps just as much and doesn't take up food garden space.
The closer these flower plantings are to your garden, the better since the bees will pollinate both that way.  

Redhawk

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone.

This is the path I intend to follow, healthy, vigorous vegetables that can fend off disease and insects by their lonesome. Time will tell what works and what doesn't I suppose. Wanted to supplement that with some added protection. I'll look into native species of flowers, was planning on lining either side of the garden with a 4-footish row of them. What about bushes/hedges? Will any native species do the trick? What sort of birds do I want in the garden? Should I introduce ladybugs etc on my own, or grow the flowers and hope that they will come? Perhaps both?

One thing that brings me a lot of joy, is when people post photos of a horrifying looking bug that is infesting one of their garden plants... Check out photos of ladybug larvae to see what I mean...

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
One thing that brings me a lot of joy, is when people post photos of a horrifying looking bug that is infesting one of their garden plants... Check out photos of ladybug larvae to see what I mean...

LOL jeeze they do look quite threatening

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:I have learned to eat bug larvae. Can't even tell that they are there in a cherry unless I look for them.

Yes! Do NOT examine a half-eaten cherry to see if there is a worm or larva. (Learned this one the hard way!)

On the farm, we've found the pest control that works best for us is 1) growing food outside of the pest window (eg cabbages in winter to avoid cabbage moth) and 2) grow varieties that don't seem to get attacked.

Regarding birds as pest control- you really need to learn about your local birds. There's a native bird on the farm that is great for catching flying pests, but it will only fly out from tree cover a little ways for food. So the top of the market garden gets these birds but not the bottom (pastures attach the market garden at the bottom).

I've found that even when you plant loads of companion plants (perennial wherever possible), the garden will still take a few years to find equilibrium while the good bugs discover your plot and move in. And remember that the good bugs will only stay while there are pests to eat, so you will always have SOME bug damage. Start being okay with bug damage. 😉

We use French Marigold and sweet alyssum to deter insect pests. There is a marigold that is actually a calendula that is not used to deter pests.

In some areas of the country, we have no choice but to use organic insecticides such as Neem or B.t. If we don't, our beans and field peas will be so stung and damaged that they are inedible (and definitely not able to sell at market). Here in the deep south, large agricultural operations are responsible for eliminating almost all of our beneficial insects.

So even if we create attractant crops for beneficial insects, the populations of beneficial insects aren't large enough to be of any assistance. One thing we can do is plant trap crops like Hubbard Squash to help with squash bug control, but that alone isn't enough.

Not sure why there is such perceived resistance to using OMRI listed insecticides that are either sourced from plants or contain beneficial bacteria to fight insects that can destroy your crops. I would rather use organic insecticides and actually have a profitable garden than let my crops get perennially decimated and not do anything about it.

Wayne Veasey wrote:
Not sure why there is such perceived resistance to using OMRI listed insecticides that are either sourced from plants or contain beneficial bacteria to fight insects that can destroy your crops. I would rather use organic insecticides and actually have a profitable garden than let my crops get perennially decimated and not do anything about it.

It's because this is a permaculture forum where we are looking for better ways - OMRI listed stuff would be the bare minimum standard that we are willing to discuss on this site.

Burra Maluca wrote:
It's because this is a permaculture forum where we are looking for better ways - OMRI listed stuff would be the bare minimum standard that we are willing to discuss on this site.

What's the difference between adding insect-attracting plants to a landscape versus adding a concentrated supply of beneficial bacteria in the form of B. thuringiensis for larval insect control or B. amyloliquefaciens for disease control? Different zones are going to have much different insect and diseases pressures. For example, the Pacific Northwest has much less insect and disease pressure than say Georgia or Florida.

It seems the anti-insecticide crowd automatically disapproves them without knowing the source of the active ingredients. Some of us have no choice but to use them.

Wayne Veasey wrote:
What's the difference between adding insect-attracting plants to a landscape versus adding a concentrated supply of beneficial bacteria in the form of B. thuringiensis for larval insect control or B. amyloliquefaciens for disease control?

One is a permaculture solution while the other is just an organic solution.  It's up to you which you choose, but as this is a permaculture forum most members will be seeking a more permaculture type solution.

On my farm, I interpret "permaculture" to mean minimizing imports from The Corporation. Therefore, I'm not buying bacteria, fungi, fertilizer, mulch, seeds, cides, sprayers, etc. I'm not importing Neem from the tropics, nor BT from a laboratory.

On a philosophical note: If I'm growing plant varieties that came out of a corporate breeding program, then it seems to me that they have been selected to only grow well in the corporate system, which means with the chemical spray regimen used on The Corporation's farms. I feel the same about plants that have came out of the Certified Organic Department of The Corporation. I don't want to grow plants that have been selected to only thrive if they are treated with Neem or BT. I want to grow plants that thrive without any inputs from any division of The Corporation. Therefore, I grow my own seeds, and swap for seeds with collaborators who share my world view that plants know how to take care of themselves. And that plants that have taken care of themselves for many generations in the same field, really know how to take care of themselves.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
Therefore, I grow my own seeds, and swap for seeds with collaborators who share my world view that plants know how to take care of themselves. And that plants that have taken care of themselves for many generations in the same field, really know how to take care of themselves.

That's a great philosophy to have. I'm fond of the idea of selecting for traits in plants that will result in minimal inputs.

I'm curious as to how you select for a trait that's not present -- one that can't be selected for? For example, if every one of my squash plants get powdery mildew every year, how do I select against the powdery mildew susceptibility? And how do you know that the lack of damage (insect or disease) on a crop in a given year isn't a result of a larger ecosystem control and not anything specific with the plant genetics? In other words, how do you differentiate between insect pressures and diseases that are a result of climate versus those that are a result of poor plant genetics?

Do you keep growing a particular strain year after year until a resistant mutation occurs? Or is it simply by chance that you find these more hardy and durable cultivars?

Sorry for all the questions. Just curious about your seed selection process.

There’s some really great thoughts and notions going on in this thread! Burra is right that it is ultimately up to each one of us to choose how we garden. Gardening in the mediterranean, the badlands, suburban utah, florida, or middle tennessee each require different techniques. There’s no one right way. I will always do my best to offer suggestions and advice in areas that I actually know a little something about. Wayne, I believe you should do what you need to do to grow a successful crop that will put food on the table, but also know that those Bacillus inputs you mentioned, aren’t necessary if the plants are at their healthiest. Healthy plants that aren’t attacked by flying & crawling pests or have spotty leaves or other signs of disease are grown in soils that have an abundance of minerals, not just the basics N,P,K,Ca,Mg,Cu…etc, but also the other minerals (and they’re unlikely to be noted on a soil test) that most don’t associate with growing healthy plants, like cobalt, selenium, iodine, nickel, silicon, sodium…etc. (There are other factors like organic matter, humus, microbial life, soil tilth, soil pH) Fully “mineralized” soils will grow plants that can fend off diseases, so bacteria like B. amyloliquefaciens aren’t needed. Healthy plants have a high naturally occurring sugar content, which the bugs we call pests don’t like to eat. Insects can smell this, and moths, for example, won’t lay their eggs on healthy plants, so there aren’t any caterpillars to do any defoliating.

I myself am still working at remineralizing my soil, and I’m getting there. This spring, I grew killer heads of lettuce, lush spinach, and perfect globes of cabbage. Nary an undesirable insect on them or any holes in the leaves of symptoms of disease. My tomato plants right now may appear to be a lush healthy green, but if I get on my knees and look at the undersides of the leaves, there’s aphids and whiteflies. My eggplants have holes in the leaves from the little flea beetle bastards. My pepper plants look great, no pests, no disease. So what I’m gathering from my observations is my soil is getting better, but still needs a little improvement. I can grow some crops that turn out perfect (literally) but others aren’t quite as healthy as they could be.

I have “store bought” microbes like Effective Microorganisms, bacillus soil inoculant, mycohrizae inoculant, and a bacillus disease control called Serenade. One day I may not ever need these, especially the Serenade, but until then I am also not going to idly sit by, and watch my food crops waste away due to a disease and then go buy inferior vegetables at the grocery store. If I see disease symptoms, I have a tool to use to help my plants cope and manage, without poisoning the planet or my body. I garden because I love being a steward to plants, to bring forth life from a seed and nurture a plant which puts food on my table and equally importantly, food that is nutrient dense so I stay healthy and avoid health problems now and later in life.

I love Joseph’s philosophies, and organics have mostly gotten corporate on us. He’s right that a lot of common hybrids are bred to do well under chemical regimens, needing synthetic high nitrogen fertilizers to grow well and are dependent upon chemical sprays so they don’t succumb to disease or pest infestations. And on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, there are hybrids bred by growers like us for ecological, holistic gardening methods (look for OSSI seeds to find these hybrids). I consider myself a holistic gardener, going beyond organics as most people understand organics, doing my best to nurture the soil and provide habitat for beneficial insects.

Sorry for the harangue.

Wayne: What a beautiful series of questions. Hope that I can give a suitable response.

How do I go about selecting for a trait that doesn't already exist in a population?

First of all, I don't dwell in a black/white world. I live in the rainbow, or on a gray-scale. By that I mean that my plant breeding philosophy is that there are thousands or tens of thousands of genes in a plant, and that each one tends to have an incremental influence on the overall shape and function of the plant. Some more than others, but none of them exist in isolation.  So my plant breeding philosophy is based on the meme of promiscuous pollination, so that the genetics can constantly be rearranging themselves, so that all those little incremental differences can have the opportunity to recombine themselves in excellent ways.

I don't have to know the genetics of a plant to be able to observe how it grows in my garden... So I don't worry about pedigrees or alleles. I look at the whole plant... I also don't worry about "mutations". I don't know what those are or how they would be helpful to me. And just cause something new appears, I'm not going to call it a mutation. It might just be a rearrangement of previously existing genes.

Because I save my own seeds, year after year, the offspring tend towards having genetics that thrive in my garden. I don't need to know what those genetics are, or how they have the effect that they do. I just save seeds from the plants that are able to survive my growing conditions. If a species is not able to survive my growing conditions at all, then I might try changing my growing conditions, or try different varieties of the species until one of them succeeds. I have the most success planting genetically-diverse landraces. Because when I plant a landrace, there are many many different genetic combinations, and something might succeed. Next best, is the second generation from hybrids, because they have lots of different genetic combinations.

I often write about my frost/cold tolerant tomatoes. I am not selecting for winter-hardy (USDA Zone 4) tomatoes. That is far outside of the genetic ability of tomatoes to survive. What I am selecting for is tomatoes that can bounce back from an unexpected spring frost, and for tomatoes that can thrive in spite of the intense nighttime radiant-cooling experienced in my high-altitude desert garden. So I'm selecting for something just a little bit outside of their comfort zone.

To specifically address powdery mildew. It is a fungal disease that is often spread by aphids. So how might a plant population deal with it? Perhaps by having longer hairs on the leaves so that aphids are less attracted to it... Perhaps there are many more hairs... Perhaps by making chemicals in the sap that are poisonous to aphids, or that make the plant less attractive to them... Perhaps by developing a thicker or tougher leaf which makes it more difficult for aphids to feed... Perhaps by having more waxy leaves... Perhaps by having more chemicals that interfere with the fungi's ability to spread or reproduce... Perhaps by cutting off sap flow to infected areas. Perhaps by growing faster than the fungi is able to spread. Perhaps by fruiting quickly before the plant is killed by the fungus. Perhaps by growing better in temperatures that are too cold/hot for the fungus or the aphids. Perhaps by releasing pheromones that attract aphid predators. Perhaps by some combination of all these, and/or by modifications in many other traits which I can't even imagine. Squash originated in warm-humid areas: perfect conditions for powdery mildew. Therefore I believe that they inherently contain the genetics necessary to deal with mildews. If any particular variety has lost that ability because it was grown with crop protection chemicals for generations, then perhaps that isn't a variety that I want to be growing on my farm.

I don't worry about the specifics of how the plants are going to solve the problems, I just grow the plants and let them figure it out for themselves. It helps if I give them enough genetics to have the tools to solve the problem. That's why I like to grow the offspring of hybrids, and why I like promiscuous pollination, and why I like growing landraces. Landrace have a lot of genetic diversity so that it makes it easier to try lots of different genetic combinations. If I'm growing a commercial (inbred) variety, the seeds are more or less clones of themselves. I can expect approximately the same outcome from any plant, and from year to year. If I plant a packet containing 300 seeds from a landrace, it's like trialing 300 unique varieties. The offspring of hybrids aren't as diverse, but they can be useful.

A few years ago, I planted about 15 seeds from a pink bean along with hundreds of varieties of other dry beans. Today, that pink bean is about 1/3 of my bean population. Most of the other varieties disappeared within a few generations. Pinto beans were another variety that thrived for me.

When I first started growing cantaloupes, I planted dozens of varieties. The first year, none of the varieties produced a ripe fruit. Some of them produced green fruits with viable seeds. The second year, a couple of plants produced more fruits than all the rest of the patch put together, and they got ripe. The third year, the offspring produced bushels, and bushels of ripe fruit.

I could provide one example after another of these kinds of results: obtained by growing a number of varieties, and selecting among their promiscuously pollinating offspring for plants that thrive on my farm.

The climate is not separate from the weather, from the soil, from the farmer's habits, from the insects, from the bacteria, from the molds, from the birds, from the sunlight, from the dust, etc. I live in the rainbow: Everything has an affect on everything else. By being better adapted to my habits as a farmer, the plants are better able to adapt to the soil. By being better adapted to the soil, they are able to handle the insects more reliably. Etc, etc, etc, etc... I think of plant breeding as a mesh network. Everything is connected to everything else. I can't change anything without affecting everything.

If I plant a variety, and it fails in my garden it is permanently gone from my garden. No second chances. If it don't grow here, I'm not going to bang my head against a wall trying to get different results next year. Sure I grew runner beans 5 years in a row before I harvested seeds. But I grew different varieties every year. And it's a species that is expected to grow here. It's not like I was trying to grow oranges.  

It's not chance that I find varieties that work, or rather it's not -only- chance. I am consistently playing the genetic lottery. Eventually I may find something that works. With spinach, about half of the varieties that I buy from a glitzy seed catalog will do well here. With tomatoes, about 95% will fail. With moschata squash the failure rate is about 75%.

Third year. Magical year.


Edit to add: I do a lot of successive approximations.. For example, if I receive a corn that is too long season for my garden, I might replant seeds of the earliest of the early. After a few generations of doing that, the corn may  be ready to harvest weeks earlier than  the original. If the skunks eat the lowest cobs from the patch every year, and I plant the survivors, then eventually, the cobs end up being higher off the ground so that they are out of reach of the skunks.

James, I don't often amend my soils beyond wood chips, but this has been a horrible spring for stink bugs. I've been taking the long view and saving seeds in the hope that I can end up with naturally resistant variities. However, if I can do a long lasting repair to the soil itself I don't see that hurting the breeding program or unintentionally poisoning my home. This area of the state is better known for open range than intensive farming. It's notoriously poor soil here.

Did you find somewhere that does a better quality soil test and then amend based on that. Or is there a more generic amendment or process that you use? The mineral amendments I hear the most about around here are Azomite, greensand, and decomposed granite.

Casie- I have not specifically sought out a lab to test for elements like selenium, silicon, etc. I've only used traditional soil tests by labs that focus on analyzing for crop growth. I currently have and use azomite and I apply it to the rate recommend by the azomite people, which I believe is 1/2 lb for 10 square feet, and do that annually. I did also last year sprinkle some granular kelp in my beds. I had bought some thorvin kelp for my chickens and still give it to them, but one day I thought "what the hell, I'll toss some in the garden". The kelp also has some minerals, especially nice stout levels of iodine, but what it has that azomite, greensand and granite dust don't have are amino acids, which plants and microbial life will benefit from. The downside with the kelp is it's costly compared to mineral ores. Another source of trace minerals is Sea-90, which is essentially sea salt. I have no experience using it yet myself, and I do want to apply it and will when I run out of azomite. There's a cautionary tale involved with sea-90, and too many applications will cause excessive sodium levels in the soil and cause problems, but that should not scare anyone from using a light application once a year for a couple years and then cease application. So to answer your question, I simply use a generic amendment process with mineral ores. I glanced in the googlesphere and from what I gathered on their website it appears that Mineral Labs Inc. does a soil and rock mineral test that will show just about everything on the periodic table. The nice thing with mineral ores is it's kinda difficult to overdo it, but as with everything in life excesses will do more harm than good. Mineral ores are very slow to dissolve and become available for microbes to use themselves or make available for plant uptake, which makes them very gentle on the soil food web and won't "shock the system".

In response to Wayne's original question/statement:

No matter what the pesticide is, when we kill the pests, we kill the predators thru starvation if not toxicity bioaccumulation. In addition to bioaccumulating toxins in their bodies to 10x the amount found in their food, predators always take longer to breed and do so in response to their prey. So even if we are just killing our pests with physical means, we are setting back their predators even more and will have to do the work of the predators ourselves. I don't mean to say any of this with any moral judgement. I actually enjoy squishing aphids, but probably not as much as a lacewing larvae enjoys eating them.

It is becoming nearly impossible to find anywhere "clean" nowadays, but I would seriously consider moving if I lived in a place too toxic for predatory insects. This is because that toxicity is often bioaccumulating many more times (at a factor of 10 in each trophic step) en route to you and your family, especially if we eat meat or dairy.  Even neem has some serious health effects, which probably correlated to how it can be powerful medicine, but of course any medicine isn't always something we want to be taking perpetually through our food.

We may not have a lot of your SE swarms of insects, but we do have a green rush here in NorCal that has bred some prodigious mites and aphids. I have used neem and bt with marginal success, and even made my own lemongrass and castor oil spray that worked for awhile. But having seen the end game being less and less success in fighting the bottom of the trophic ladder, I am now in my second year going without sprays. After a setback correlated to starts being in a greenhouse, the predators I have reintroduced (lacewings, ladybugs, predatory mites) and encouraged (lots of simple flowers like Umbels to attract the aforementioned predators as well as beneficial wasps and flies) have started knocking back the pests and seem to be keeping them under control as well as sprays did.