Hello, gardening friends, welcome to
Backyard Basics, I'm John Dromgoole.
Well we end up with problems in our
garden sometimes as the weather changes
maybe from winter to spring, or goes in
and out of winter and spring. The plants
get distressed because they think it's
one season or the other, and when they're
distressed, here come the insects that do
the damage. It's  their job to get rid of
the weaker species. So as we see that, we
need to do something about managing
those. So there's some homemade remedies.
There's always something around the
house that will manage some of the insects.
Here's one of the traditional ones, and
it's the blending of peppers. I'm not
going to touch those because they're
very hot. And then some garlic. You blend
the two of those together, and there's
different formulas. There's books out
there that will show you how to make
these blends. And so you blend the garlic
and the pepper, and it's one of the best
insecticides that you're going to find
for homemade remedies. Another one is eggshells.
Now eggshells are very sharp, and so
when slugs or snails are coming over to the
plants, you put it around the base of the
plant. Last year we had a big snail
problem, so we put those around the base
in containers. Or out in the garden, you
can put quite a few out there also,
around the seedlings, that is, and that
will keep them off of there, and that's
really important when they're getting
started because they will nibble the
edge of it and then the plant will fall over.
So that's a good way to keep them away.
Another thing that we use is coffee
grounds. They have a tendency to slow
down the slugs and snails also. Some
other insects it keeps awake longer and
they do a lot more damage, but it's a
great mulch and a great nutrient also. So
coffee grounds are another thing not to waste,
go ahead and use them in the garden, and
it doesn't make any difference whether
it's a plant in the ground or a
container plant. They're all going to
benefit from the coffee grounds. Now some
flying insects are managed easily, too,
with these types of traps.
These are called sticky traps, and they
have a nice gluing substance on them, and
all the insects are attracted to the
yellow color, and so this is placed in
the ground
next to the insects in the garden or in
container plants indoors. A lot of us have
flying insects like gnats, fungus gnats.
They get caught on this rather easily.
These are replaceable. I think that this
is a very good alternative: non-toxic and
it will do the job for you to manage
flying insects. Now there's one here
that's white and that is for the
whitefly. The whitefly will go to that
one every time, and you'll get management
of those. Also, there are many products on
the market that if you don't have time
to make your own,  you can select from
some of these and they're all safe to
use: certified organic. It's the kind of
thing you want to use around your home.
Now the books, they're great, and they're
many of them. Actually there are some
books that the city of Austin produces
too about well-adapted plants. It's not so
much about in and out of the season but
about plants that are well-adapted, and
when they're well adapted, they're much
more resistant to insects. And one thing
you need to remember is that if you
kill a beneficial insect, you inherit their job.
Skip Victor always mentioned that one.
For Backyard Basics, I'm John Dromgoole.
See you next time.
