Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today I have another exciting episode for
you.
As you guys can see, today I'm harvesting
my peppers.
End of the season, harvesting peppers, but
this is not a pepper harvesting video.
I might have that in another video for you
guys about when to harvest your food because
we are going to frost soon and then we're
going to have to pull these guys up anyways,
but what today's episode is about actually
it's about pest and bug control.
I know many of you guys have pest problems.
Many of you guys may not even be gardening
because of the pests.
You fear the pests, like 'oh my gosh, I can't
even grow anything because the bug's going
to eat it,' right?
Don't fear the pests any longer.
In this video we show the organic solution
that you can use to take care of the majority
of your pest problems.
So, the first thing I'd like to say is, you
know, before you even get the pests, it's
important to prevent the pests from happening
in the first place.
So, the number one way to do that, in my opinion,
is build good soil.
You know, you're as healthy as the food you
what, right?
If you're eating McDonalds, junk food, fast
food, processed food, things in packages,
bottles, and jars, right?
You're not going to be as healthy as somebody
that's eating a whole foods, you know, diet
rich in fruits and vegetables, and our plants
are like us.
They need to be fed good food.
So, we don't want to just put, you know, soil
down there and then put some chemically made
fertilizer and whatnot because the plants
aren't going to get everything they need.
I encourage you guys to use the biologic organic
gardening and farming methods, which includes
adding things like bacterial compost, fungal
compost, the trace minerals like the rock
dust, C90, applying compost tea, the worm
castings, the insect frast, and all the other
biologic agents that actually put the bacteria
and fungi and other microorganisms into your
soil so hat they can ensure your plants thrive.
Now, even in my garden where I have been doing
this, I do have some pest pressures.
So, what we're going to talk about today is
how to deal with the pest pressures if you
have them, but the goal, number one goal,
overall is to not get the pest pressures,
right?
By growing good healthy crops and building
your soil, you know.
For example, fro us, like if your wife or
husband has a flu or a cold, right?
They're sleeping right next to you in the
bed, they're sharing, you know, utensils with
you, hopefully you're not sharing toothbrushes,
but they'll be sick, but you wont, that's
because you have immune system.
Well, plants are the same way.
They have immune systems.
So, once again, build the soil so that you
have healthy plants, they have a stronger
immune system, and they'll be able to fend
for themselves.
Think about it.
For, you know, the millions of year, trillions
of year, I don't know how many, I wasn't a
history major, that the earth has been around,
there was no such thing as pesticides, even
organic ones.
Nobody sprayed anything.
The plants literally had to fend for themselves.
The difference between then and now, among
other things, was the soil.
There was a lot better soil, more nutrition
in the soil, and the plants were able to have
string immune systems.
Nowadays, when you're growing in imported
topsoil, soils that are devoid of minerals
and the microbiologics in the soil, the plants
aren't going to be as healthy.
So, number one, grow healthy plants so that
you won't have to do anything else.
The second way I like to control pests is
manual control.
So, you know, as I've been pulling my peppers,
I've seen a couple small snails in here.
So, the easiest thing is to pull them off,
smush them, compost them, get ducks or chickens
and feed them to your ducks and chickens.
Manual control is always best.
The only negative with manual control is if
you have acreage, you won't be able to do
it.
If you have a small 4-foot by 4-foot bed,
I always encourage you guys to do manual control
first before spending any extra money to buy
any gadgets or gizmos or sprays to spray on
your crops.
Manual control is always the easiest.
Hire some neighborhood kids.
Maybe you got some kids, you know, in your
household, have them find slugs and pay them
a nickel.
Maybe might have to pay them more than a nickel.
Pay them a quarter, maybe a dollar.
Pay them a dollar for every slug they find,
and that'll get them busy, they'll learn about,
you know, the importance of hard work, and
you'll get a slug free garden and you'll be
like, 'okay, everyone, you get a dollar.
Go out and hunt them,' and they'll sit there
all day trying to find them, right?
So, healthy plants, manual control, the next
way I'd recommend is by using other kind of
control.
So, number one, grow healthy plants, number
2, manual control.
Oh, another thing you can do is also exclude
the pests.
So, if you have heavy pest problems, you know,
make hoops and grow with the remade fabric
shade cloth or clear plastic over the top
of your plants so that the bugs can't get
in there to eat your stuff, right?
So, exclude them.
The next way I would do is when I start to
spray stuff.
So, the first spray that I recommend for you
guys is to spray only water.
Water is natural, it's like the rain.
We're not going to emulate the rain and just
spray just droplets, but we're going to spray
on a pressurized spray at high pressure.
I have had videos on tis in the past.
It's called the bug blaster.
That's the device I use in my garden when
I have pest issues to spray them off.
Works good in soft-bodied insects like the
aphids and whiteflies and whatnot, spray them
off, and that should be the end of them.
If I have a persistent issue and the other
ways that I control them don't work, I have
a pretty big outbreak, then I'm going to do
what you guys are going to learn next.
So, I've been using this technique myself
in my very garden for about a year now, and
nothing that I've tested has worked better,
and this is super simple, super easy and anybody
can do it.
So, what we're going to have on todays show
is a special guess.
We got Josh Cunnings of the Boogie Brew Company.
Now, formally it is the Boogie Brew Product
because as a grower himself, and he grew lots
of California tomatoes if you know what I
mean, he grew the best California tomatoes
ever, and the fertilizer chemicals got too
expensive, so he made up his own natural organic
solution, and guess what?
Besides growing California tomatoes, that
stuff also works on everything.
I mean, as the results, you can see them,
it's doing really good, but besides just having
good nutrition, you also sometimes need to
control pests, because we can't be like, 'there's
no pests, there's no pests, there's no pests,'
and avoid them because then they're going
to take over.
So, he has a natural organic method to control
pests that, you know, that I use in my garden.
So, I guess, without further ado, let's get
into Josh's clip and let him show you how
deal with pests and actually how he's doing
it in my very garden to take care of pests
for me, and I like that a lot.
This is Josh Cunnings and I'm appearing on
behalf of John Kohler here at his own garden,
in his home town of northern California, and
as you just saw, his peppers have all been
doing really well, his strawberries have been
basting.
In fact, 90% of John's garden has been absolutely
raging all summer long.
Here we are deep in the summer, the garden
just keeps on perpetually going, but just
like all growers, John has suffered a couple
of relatively minor disease, pest, and fungus
disease pressure problems.
Speaking of one, it's right here behind me.
His squash plants, and it's PM.
It's called powdery mildew, and right there
I took the liberty of plucking one of his
particularly afflicted PM squash leaves, and
as you can see, it looks like, you know, snow
has been unceremoniously sort of sprayed,
if you will, on his leaves.
Now, this is not a healthy sign.
This is a fungus that's attacking his squash
leaves, and is actually quite prevalent here
in Sonoma County, which is a coastally influenced
region, and also has a big grape republic
behind it.
A lot of grape monoculture growing, and so
that has led to conditions which have allowed
PM, powdery mildew, to run rampant amongst
the grower here in north Cal, and also John
has been suffering from a big problem, a pest
pressure that's occurring right now in his
tree collards.
Let's go to the other part of his garden and
take a peek at that.
Let's touch on the subject of pesticides.
If you go into just about any hardware stores
pest control aisle, you can smell a noxious
odor oozing from the virtual smorgasbord of
chemical substances.
Amazingly, most people seem to accept this
as perfectly normal without even considering
the dangerous effects to our environments.
America produces a mind-boggling 5 billion
pounds of pesticide products each year alone.
That's almost 20 pound of poison for every
man, woman and child in the US, annually.
Unbelievably, pesticides originate form chemical
warfare products.
Yes, the same fearsome substances developed
by the Nazis and subsequently expanded into
our weapons arsenals, creating a perfect trickledown
opportunity for the military industrial complex,
who could profit from feeding the same poisons
back to the entire human population.
Just look at Monsanto.
Creators of that lethal chemical used in the
Vietnam War, Agent Orange, and who are now
a worldwide pesticide conglomerate.
The question is, why?
The industries limits are endless.
Is it a runaway train that just can't be stopped?
Yea, are there any grounds for the existence
of these products to begin with?
Barely one tenth of a percent of chemicals
actually reach their target.
The other 99.9% goes straight into our environment.
Where does is it all end up?
I'll tell you where it goes.
It bioaccumulates up the entire food chain,
polluting all of our ground water and leaving
a cancerous footprint in the organs and tissues
of each and every one of us.
Now, here's what you can do about all this.
Just like John says, 'vote against this disgusting
and poisonous scam with your dollars,' and
the good news is, that while the false promise
of chemical pesticides has become a world-wide
tragedy, there are powerful and natural recipes
that flat out work against bugs a disease.
Today, I'm going to show you how you can easily
win any bug battle using my clean, green,
Dr. Broaner's Salsuds soap, and neem oil recipe.
Let's go take a look at John's garden, where
his famous tree collards have been suffering
from a particularly ugly infestation.
Through JK's uber garden jungle we go, and
I passed his stricken tree collard greens
here and let's go take a peek at what he has
over here.
Wow.
Well, what do we have here?
These look like some seriously infested tree
collard greens, and just what are these bugs
and the resident colony?
Who are these little suckers who've been inhabiting
John's hapless tree collard leaves?
I mean, my god, they've simply gone to town
here, I'm afraid.
Any of you (unclear) who are entomologists
out there, we could use some help in identifying
these little suckers.
They almost look somewhat like orange, overlarge
ladybugs.
Definitely some sort of Romani bug, or a leaf
miner type creature.
Oh, man.
This is a pretty serious infestation.
Well, we're going to win this battle with
our favorite all time pest control recipe,
and we're going to keep John's garden free
of these nasty critters once and for all.
I've yet to find a better all-around pest
and disease controlling recipe than the one
that I'm about to tell you of, but first of
all, you're going to need any type of quart
or pint-sized jar that's party filled with
warm water, alright?
This part is important, and we'll talk about
why you need this item in a minute.
Now, these here are the two vital ingredients
which make up our boogie bug battling super
formula.
Dr. Brauner's salsud soap and cold press neem
oil.
This one's called, appropriately enough, super
cleaning.
Alright, so, now, Dr. Brauner's, a lot of
you are familiar with their famous line of
castile soaps, which are considers the world's
finest quality, containing only the purest
of ingredients, with no harsh or caustic agent
in their recipe.
It's the only allowed soap, for instance,
used in places like the Havasupai Indian reservation,
which is a pristine environment located deep
in the depths of the grand canyon, where the
native tribal dwelling residents have insisted
that their land be respected and that their
soil ecosystem remains completely clean, pure,
and unpolluted.
Now, this is not your more typical Brauner's
soap, like their poplar castile line of peppermint,
almond, or, for instance, their lavender body
soap, but it's their highest suds formula.
It's made for increased detergent power, and
you can find this in your local health food
stores dish and laundry soaps section.
Now, as is typical with Dr. Brauner's labeling,
there's a ton of information on here.
It's made basically from some of the cleanest
soap substances on earth, including coconut
fatty acids.
Now, what I love about this product are its
fantastic penetrating, surfactant, and wetting
agent capabilities.
It is a superb spreader sticker agent and
it can be used as a valuable mixing ingredient
with a whole host of foliar foods for your
plants.
The cool thing about Dr. Brauner's is that
they give you 1% Canadian fir and Canadian
spruce needle oil.
These are pure, essential oils from fir and
spruce, and which are added to increase the
soaps purifying powers.
There's been a lot of research indicating
the benefits of pine oil to plants, including
a fair degree of bug repellency, as well as
in aiding nitrogen uptake, but, of course,
our true hero in the boogie bug battle is
undoubtedly neem oil.
This has become my favorite brand.
It's called, appropriately enough, super clean
neem, and what makes this particular neem
oil so effective is the fact that it's actually
obtained from a truly cold pressed oil, not
just expeller pressed.
Now, those of you who are familiar with good
quality olive oil will know the difference
between expeller pressed and a truly cold
pressed virgin oil, and clean neem fulfills
its name with its purity and quality.
Now, let's not forget that in India, where
I believe the neem tree actually originates
from, throughout history, they've experienced
devastating locust infestations, which have
been known to wipe out an entire countywide
region of all green plant life.
The only plant which is left entirely untouched
by these massive locust scourges where they
come thought and they consume every piece
of green vegetative matter that they can devour
is the neem tree.
Now, that right there indicates, to me, neems
supreme bug repelling abilities.
Now, neem is actually great for human health.
It's good for the immune system, for infections,
viruses and all disorders of the human musculous
gladital system.
There is a multitude of benefits from neem,
and I'm not going to pontificate to you about
it all here, but you can go to a website called
neemfoundation.org and you can learn more
of this truly amazing panacea.
All parts of the neem tree, from its bark
to the leaves, the fruits and indeed the oil
from its seeds, contains beneficial properties.
The tree even grows in arid climates, it thrives
in poor soils, and it's actually even able
to restore depleted soils of lost nutrients.
Now, believe it or not, a giant chemical and
pharmaceutical corporation, I believe it was
a company knows as WR Gracie.
They actually tried to patent the neem tree
for their own profit-driven usage, and by
the 1990's, they were defeated in their efforts
to monopolize such a valuable natural species
by coalition of farmers from India and environmental
activist in Europe, who were able to get the
international patent office to successfully
revoke the patent.
I mean, how can you earn the exclusive rights
to a native tree, right?
It's ridiculous, and it's highly indicative
of the greed which these chemicals pesticide
companies will go to in order to get a stranglehold
on the worlds entire farming infrastructure.
The truth is, neem is highly effective as
a natural and potent pesticide on over 90%
of invasive bug species without any long term
adaptation or resistance by the target insects
to it's multitude of natural compounds.
Now, keep in mind that this is not the case
with those chemical pesticides, which the
manufacturers have to keep reformulating at
they unleash every stronger compounds in an
effort to outpace the bugs own populations
abilities with each new generation to build
increased resistance to mankind's latest salve
of poisons.
Now, you talk about and endlessly toxic and
deadly cycle, which is being maintained by
our corporatocracies grip on world farming
and one which is entirely, in my opinion,
unnecessary to boot.
So, you're going to take these two products
and, as I said earlier, it's very important
to use a warm jar with water and these items
make up the basic recipe.
You're going take your jar, and you are going
to add 2 tablespoons per gallon of each ingredient
to your jar.
Now, today, because the weather's warm, the
neem oil actually possesses good viscosity
and as you can see, it's flowing pretty easily
out of the container, but for those of you
in colder climates, or if you've stored your
neem in a cooler environment, where it can
easily solidify in the bottle, it will be
necessary for you to place the neem bottle
in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes
first, so that you do have a good flowing
highly viscous substance.
So, you see how I'm putting the neem into
the water there?
I'm actually supposed to put the required
2 tablespoons of oil into the water.
This is just for demonstration, and look at
that.
It's already kind of globulating.
As you can see, it won't mix properly.
Now, here's where the magic happens.
You're going to take your jar, you're going
to add in an equal quantity.
In this case, 2 tablespoons.
Just for the videos sake, I'm going to approximate
it, of Dr. Brauner's salsud soap, and we're
going to start mixing it up a little bit and
I can see already it's starting to form a
cloud.
Now, we're going to make a neem milk shake.
Just shake it.
See that?
In seconds, you have a wonderfully emulsified
substance, which is going to be far more easily
utilized and fused across the plant tissue
foliage, allowing for much better penetration
and overall coverage.
Now, some portions additives that you can
elect to use are products like rosemary and
clove oils.
Even essential oils like peppermint, cinnamon,
and orange oil, which should all be judiciously
applied, of course, and these can be useful
in particularly stubborn bug infestations.
Rosemary, for instance is well suited to work
extremely well against spider mites, although,
in my experience the basic soap and neem recipe
has always sufficed for me.
Clove oil is also known as one of the only
reliable killers of the mites own eggs, whereas
with the neem oil, the reproductive cycle
will get disrupted, but it's going to take
a few sprays applications for that to occur.
So, it can be helpful to use these other types
of products if you really want to destroy
the eggs, etc.
Now, there's quite a few organic pest control
products out there, with these kinds of oils.
These particular one here is made by OAP,
organic ad products, and it's called redbugs.
Now, I've gone and added a couple of capfuls
of it for good measure to the soap and neem
base, which I already have here in a premixed
jar, so that we can aggressively go after
JK's own bug colony here.
Now, today, I'm going to show you how I love
to use this bug-blasting recipe with my favorite
ever machine.
John's very own commercial atomizing sprayer.
This particular unit is called the Hudson
FOG.
It's very well built.
It's made by Hudson, who also happens to make
my favorite hose and sprayer, the chameleon
sprayer.
Now, this sprayer is a wickedly handy tool
for any serious gardener.
I was a grower for years, and I trust this
machine implicitly.
It just makes the time consuming job of spraying
so much quicker, and it allows for truly complete
and total penetration of the plant canopy.
Moreover, the atomization of the emulsified
neem soap blend renders a true fog particle
sized delivery, which helps to provide a better
diffusion across more surface areas and it
also delivers the beneficial neem compounds
in a kinder and gentler form to the plant
leaves stomata, or their pores.
Indeed, neem is generally regarded as the
least clogging of all horticultural oils to
leaf stomata's, and I personally believe that
some of neems known nutritional benefits to
plants, like increased nitrogen utilization,
are actually made available to plant tissue
when applied this way in concert with the
salsuds Teflon-like microionization, and delivered
in a truly atomized fog molecule.
Now, how can I say this so confidently to
you?
Well, when I used to grow, and when I was
consistent with a neem-fogging schedule, my
plants were always clearly greener and overall
certainly much healthier.
It seemed to shine them up nicely as well,
and propose growers have used neem oil for
the purpose of beautification for decades,
utilizing it as a secret weapon to help them
win their rose contest.
So, when it comes to conducting a serious
pest control campaign, you really wan tot
employ the best technology that's available
to you and for me, this machine is simply
imperative.
Now, combining its use with the supreme recipe
like neem and salsuds soap makes pest and
disease infestations a nonissue.
Also, neem appears to bear no harm to bees
or beneficial insect populations, like the
good bugs who are higher up the food chain,
who are consuming the leaf-munching bugs.
Similarly, any neem oil residue that makes
it's way down to your soil will biodegrade
quickly and it will not pose a threat to beneficial
soil organisms, thereby aiding your soil and
maintaining its critical web of microbial
life.
Now, always remember to please use a different
spray applicator device for compost tea than
the unit that you use to apply neem or these
other horticultural oils.
Now, this is because the delicate microbial
populations in your tea will easily become
smothered by any leftover soap and oil residues
that are in your spray tank.
I strongly recommend using a machine like
this fogger, or at least a good quality backpack
type sprayer, for the neem applications, and
alternating the spraying with a unit like
the chameleon hose end sprayer to shower your
whole garden with compost tea in between.
You know, if fact, if you find yourself having
it apply the neem more than 2 times per week,
because of serious pest or disease pressure,
it's a great idea to spray with a compost
tea, like for instance, our boogie brew, on
alternating days.
Now, this will help in preventing too thick
of a waxy oil coating that can build up on
the leaf surfaces, and it will also provide
your plants with a multitude of the tea benefits
as well.
The best thing about maintaining a regularly
schedule foliar regime that alternate between
compost tea and neem sprays is that you will
simply never experience healthier plants,
and it's extremely cost effective to boot.
The key is using great recipes.
Be that a quality compost tea or, in this
case, a natural pesticide and fungicide with
agent like neem and the salsud soap, whilst
implementing badass spraying technology, like
the atomizing Hudson fogger sprayer.
If you do this regularly, your plants can't
help but dance.
Now, let's get down to business, and let me
show you how, just like al Pacino said so
famously in his movie Scarface, you know,
'you want to mess with me, you say hello to
my little friend, you nasty bugs.'
So, I'm going o to add my neem milks contents
to it.
This is the jar that I mixed earlier.
Now, in this case the Hudson fog uses a 2-gallon
base tank, alright?
So, I've actually used a total of 4 tablespoons
each of salsud and neem oil.
So, it's a good idea to actually fill the
tank with plain water first, like I've done
here, and then add the mixture afterwards,
alright?
Because that allows the foam levels to not
come up too highly.
You want to set the tank base down on a level
flat surface where you can easily see the
connections and it's very important to attack
the motor carefully and always check the entire
circumferential area of the metal clamp first.
Okay, very important.
Now, if it's crooked, then you want to remove
it and reattach in a neutral and solid manner
as possible.
When in doubt, don't take the chance of spraying
and having the unit detached itself on you,
spilling the contents everywhere.
Speaking of which, it's a good idea to wear
work clothes because there's always going
to be some spillage, although I can assure
you the ingredients are, in my humble opinion,
relatively benign and totally harmless to
human health.
Unlike those evil chemical sprays, you certainly
don't have to armor yourself in HAZMAT gear
first to defend yourself against deadly poisons.
Now, here's how I like to carry the Hudson
FOG machine.
With the strap on one shoulder only and the
air intake pointing away from my body.
What this allows me to do is temporarily pressurize
the sprayer by blocking the air intake with
my own hand if I need to, which can help when
the liquid that's remaining in the sprayer
starts to drop down to low levels.
Here's a brief demo of what I'm talking about.
So, I've holstered my machine properly, I've
check it's connection, I've attached the power
chord, in a responsible and tangle-free manner,
I have the perfect recipe inside which has
been properly mixed first, and I'm ready to
go and lay waste to those bugs.
Say hello to my little friend, you gnarly
bugs.
Here we come with our clean green neem.
Let's really go and lay waste to those evil
bugs that have been infesting his tree collard
leaves.
Say hello to our little clean green neem machine
you evil bugs.
Now, I'm also going to apply some clean neem
magic to John's squash leaves over here, which
have suffered of powdery mildew affliction,
as we were talking about earlier.
The neem oil disrupts the mold's spore's hyphae
back, or their structure, and it helps tremendously
to prevent reinfection with its supreme natural
fungicide qualities.
Here we go.
Thanks for checking out my boogie battle of
the bug episode here on growingyourgreens.
I truly hope this helps to motivate you in
maintaining a healthy pest and disease free
garden environment, and more importantly,
I urge you all to speak out about the dangers
of chemical pesticides.
Tell your garden acquaintances, your neighbors,
your family and your friends that there is
a healthier and more cost-effective method
instead.
From JK's own uber patch right here in North
Cal, this is boogies message to all growers
that there are no excuses for using poisonous
warfare products in your gardens.
Health is our only wealth and the planets
future lies in more responsible stewardship.
Alright, so, I hope you guys enjoyed that
episode with Josh as a special guest.
Hey, please post your comments down below.
Let me know if you wan tot see more of Josh,
or less of Josh.
I think he's a good guy, and, I mean, that's
the method I use to control pests in my garden,
and I believe you should, too.
Now, yes, I have that, you know, commercial
heavy duty Hudson fogger, and I love that
thing, man.
I mean, if you have a small garden, you do
not need to get the Hudson fogger, unless
you're a guy and you like gadgets like I do,
but if you have any size of raised beds or,
you know, acreage, it's defiantly something
you want to consider.
Now, yes, they are expensive, you know.
A more easier way to do that without getting
a Hudson sprayer, if you have a few potted
plants with bug issues, you know, just get
s spray bottle.
You could spray it in a spray bottle.
Make sure it's shooken up well.
Another way you could do it like Josh said,
het a backpack sprayer, or a pump sprayer.
Also, like Josh said, you want to be sure
to have a different sprayer for your organic
insect controls like the neem and Dr. Brauner's
and the compost teas.
Don't, like, use the same sprayer.
Definitely a good tip to remember, and, you
know, once again, I want to encourage you
guys to start growing.
Don't let pest issues get you down.
After listening to this episode, you know
one of the simplest and easiest ways to deal
with the majority of pests, you know, that
I've used myself in my garden with great success.
If you're interested in getting the Hudson
sprayer and the clean neem and Dr. Brauner's,
hey, please check the link below.
I've negotiated a really special deal for
you guys to help save you guys some money
and allow you to grow organically and control
your pests so that you and your family and
the earth do not have to deal with the repercussions
of toxic chemicals on your food and putting
it into the planet.
Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time, and remember; keep
on growing.
