hardland
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Location: Sth Florida

Neem Oil, BER Spray. Am I still growing on an organic basis?

So I noticed some leaf miners and a touch of Fungus on tomato plants two weeks ago, therefor purchased some Neem oil and applied it in a conservative manner. Then I noticed Blossom end rot on my fruit, so I purchased some BER calcium spray and applied that the same way. My Question, is this still withinn the parameters of Organic gardening? Will, can these products effect the taste of my vegetables or have any harm to humans? Thanks.

cynthia_h
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Neem oil is recognized as an organic control method for many pests. We just need to be careful in our use of neem, since it can also kill honeybees and other beneficial insects; my reading of available information has led me to spray neem only in the late afternoon/early evening hours, when bees have "gone home for the day." The vapors of the neem settle overnight, and bees have returned to my plants even after treatment with neem.

I don't use it more often than once a week; preferably, once every other week on a spray basis for outdoor plants.

Re. BER calcium spray: I haven't used this product, so am not familiar with it. Read the ingredients (the ones they'll tell you about...) and look on the label to find out whether the product is certified by OMRI or other organic certification programs. If so, then it, too, passes muster for organic methods.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

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rainbowgardener
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cynthia, could you provide a citation for Neem oil being harmful to honeybees? I understand that there's probably nothing that is totally safe especially to broadcast around your whole garden, even the garlic pepper spray we talk about or the soapy water.

But I've been looking into the Neem oil and honeybees question and I can't find anything that suggests Neem is harmful to anything that doesn't suck plant juices. They use Neem to treat honeybees for mite infestations:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10826163

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applestar
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Does neem actually work on leaf miners? I still think leaf miners are best dealt with when first noticed by clipping out the doodle/scribble where the leaf miner larvae are hiding between the two layers of leaves (which usually makes them invulnerable to sprays) or by removing the entire leaf.

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gixxerific
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I agree the best way to defeat leaf miners is to cut out the affected leaf. I have read that spraying may work but the insecticide still needs to be ingested.

So by cutting out the leaf no unnecessary sprayings are done that may harm beneficials.



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