BML
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Cost effective insecticides?

The price garden centres charge for insecticides is excessive and I'm fed up with beeing ripped off. Does anyone know of a cost effective way to purchase it?

DoubleDogFarm
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BML wrote:The price garden centres charge for insecticides is excessive and I'm fed up with being ripped off. Does anyone know of a cost effective way to purchase it?
Larger containers or quantities is usually cheaper.

What are your troubled plants?
What is the most common insect problem?

Knowing the plants and issues maybe solved naturally.


Eric

BML
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Cabbage beetle, aphids, caterpillars and slugs.

CharlieBear
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Aphid just spray them off with a jet of water and reapply as needed. Also incourage benificials to move in and solve the problem for you. Slugs/snails other than ducks which cause other problems you can use beer traps or make a solution with yeast and sugar. Cut a hole in a margarine container about 1/2 way up. Put it the brew and put on the lid. Distroy the catch in the morning. Or you can go out after dark with a torch and drown them in salt water or cut them in 1/2. Some people have luck with placing grapefruit half rinds after the contents have been removed with a spoon and eaten. Again you have to distroy them everyday.
Beetles and catapilars, incourage beneificials to work for you, use pinned down row covers. Put toilet paper roll collars around the cabbage when you plant it out.
Some say you can slow slugs down by putting pulvarized egg shells around the plants as they aren't real fond of crawling over something that rough. I never have enough to try it.

BML
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All I want know is if it possible to buy cost effective insecticide.

DoubleDogFarm
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BML wrote:All I want know is if it possible to buy cost effective insecticide.
I would say, Yes. :?

If you are getting a bigger, better harvest, all insecticides are cost effective.

Eric

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rainbowgardener
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But the free ones CharlieBear mentioned are the most cost effective. Zero is always the best price....

DoubleDogFarm
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rainbowgardener wrote:But the free ones CharlieBear mentioned are the most cost effective.
Charliebear's suggestions are vary good ones, and I'll add try a dusting of All Purpose Flour, but more labor intensive. Most people don't seem to add labor to the expense of growing food. Spraying chemicals, IMO, will always be easier and have faster results.
Zero is always the best price


Here again IMO, not always. Here is a simple example. A customer of mine pick-up a "free" Sears Crapsman riding mower. First go around I put about $275.00 into it. Last week I put another $150.00 of parts labor.
One should always look the gift horse in the mouth. :wink:

Eric

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Kisal
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I also agree that CharlieBear's suggestions are good. People often seem to think that there is a magical "cure-all" insecticide that will kill all insect pests and keep any new ones from invading. But that just isn't the case. Most insecticides only affect certain types of insects and not others. And if the pest isn't an insect, the situation can get even trickier. That's why I recommend that the pest first be identified, so the gardener can know that whatever control measure they use will actually be effective. Knowing the identity of the "enemy" can save a lot of wasted money and labor. JMO. :)



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