I’m have some pretty serious pest problems. I’ve been using neem oil but seems to do nothing. Sprayed yesterday evening and came back to missing branches this morning. Picked up some DE earth today, read it may solve my problem. Is this the right move? Noticed a small grasshopper on the leaves today, not sure if that’s what’s causing all the damage. Any advice appreciated.
@Hogmaster
try this by Robert Bergman
Mix together one gallon of water with a few teaspoons of dish soap. You should pour this concoction onto one or two square feet of surrounding soil. Do this either in the evening or early morning (before the sun comes up). Mole crickets that are present will come to the top of the soil.
You can try adding beneficial nematodes to your soil in order to deal with the problem organically. It should be already prevented if you prepared the site with organic compost. If you have noticed crickets anyway, add a thin layer of compost to your grow area
Posted by
garrigan62
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This is what I would do as well @garrigan62 has great homemade remedies
Sevin dust if you’re not completely growing organic. I use it on my vegetable garden with great results.
You can also get DE you want food grade
Thanks everyone for the advice, I hope I can get this figured out. I tried the water and dish soap initially but had no luck. Dusted soil and leaves with DE yesterday evening. It didn’t look like there were any new munchings this morning but hard to tell. Still found a couple grasshoppers on the leaves though. @EarlyPearl Would seven dust be a better option? I guess I’ll keep up the DE for now and see how they do. Should I be adding compost? First time grower and still learning so forgive my ignorance. @Hogmaster @garrigan62
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I use Sevin Dust on any of my vegetables in my garden and it’s even brought back my cabbage that was almost eating down to the ground. It says not to use it for 2 weeks before harvest. Amazon has 3, 16 ounce shaker bottles for 15 bucks. I’m still on my first bottle and have put it on cabbage, squash, cucumbers, and weed.
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You need to put a little fence around her… maybe some chicken wire… it looks more like rodent damage than it does bug damage… 
I would still continue with the spraying though because there is the one picture that looks almost like what a cutter bee would do and those things are horrible to deal with , cuz there’s usually thousands of them around and they only come and go whenever they want so it’s hard to catch them … you will usually only have luck when you spray the plant down and they no longer like the way it tastes … but hopefully it’s a rodent problem and not a bug problem cuz rodents should be relatively easy to keep out of there with a little chicken wire and some ingenuity…
Rodents eat weed??? @peachfuzz
Yes , as well as rabbits and all sorts of other things…
Yeah looks like rabbits were hungry.
i have been using old fashioned moth balls around my plants for over 40 years. works like a charm.
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So where would you put them if you were growing in pots? Thanks @davacavana
i put 1 moth ball in each pot, (Iuse five gallon buckets) and then spread a
few around the ground. over time they do dissolve (rain, etc) but just put
some more out. they are very cheap, and the critters wont even come close.
ive never lost a plant in 40 years! good luck and happy growing!
So you put it in the pot and take it out when you water?
I suppose you could. I never did. Really you dont even have to put them in
the pot.Just spread some on the ground around your plants. Mothballs are
99.95% naphthalene, and the critters absolutely hate the smell. I grow in
the southwest desert, and there are so many threats to my greenery that its
hard to imagine. They will eat anything! As I mentioned, ive never lost a
plant to a critter. I have lost some plants to insects, but a product
called sevin will deal with that. I quit using anything that is not organic
about a month before harvest. Just soap and water. When plants are
flowering they put out a natural repellent all by themselves. Hope that
helps. Peace out.
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where do you grow?
I just seen some of your pictures. They look real good. If i might offer a
suggestion, I would thin out much of that growth around the base of your
plants. More light and air is a good thing. Refer to your grow bible for
the details.
@davacavana I’m growing in central TX. But thanks for the advice I’ll be picking up some up asap. Still pretty desperate at this point. How much should I thin out? They’re about a foot or so tall at this point. Hoping they’ll make it through the heat!
i am in arizona. I use shade cloth when my plants are young, and slowly
introduce them to the intense sun here. You can find it cheap on Amazon.
As for thinning, just go to you tube. They show you all you need to know
and then some.
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