Well, welcome back and Congratulations on completing the first seven chapters of the course we are getting into insects in more detail today with chapter eight, the second part of insect control. And what we're going to talk about today is much more detail about the insects. We'll get into identification to a degree and what the specific controls are that I recommend for the different insects. And this is not the way to control insects. Spraying things on a broad scale with toxic chemicals, of course, is what we're not about. We're going to talk about a much better approach.

Now a lot of the insects that we run into are true bugs. Now we refer to all the insects as bugs, but they're really not. This is a true bug. The true bugs have the cross pattern on the back. This is the four line plant bug. Very beautiful insect mites, this mess of plants in the herb garden and ornamental plants to some degree but tends to like real tender, herbal kind of foliage.

The damage that's done by this four line plant bug looks a lot like disease but it's actually caused by the piercing and sucking mouth part of this pretty bug. the underneath side of the bug is bright red, so it's a very easy insect to identify. But when you see this damage, own foliage, it's often hard to see this this insect you have to kind of sneak around pull the leaves up and look in the backside they tend to run around to the other side and hide. But all of the stink bugs are not pests a lot are this green stink bug isn't passed. They use their Their mouthparts to stab the plant and suck the juices out and that causes the damage to the plant. There's a lot of different species in colors and shapes and sizes of stink bugs, but some of them are very beneficial.

And so I thought it'd be good for you to see that some of the insects that are stink bugs attack and he malls, caterpillar's and other past insects, I don't bother plants at all. So when you say you stink bugs in the garden, you need to be a little bit careful about what whether you want to kill them or not because they may be doing more good than harm related to the snake bugs or the leaf footed bugs. That's to leaf footed bugs mating there but they are pests. They do damage. You never see a whole lot of them own the plants you'll see one or two or a few and they do a little bit of damage but in a lot of cases They don't merit spraying even organic controls. Another bug that you'll run into and it's more of a nuisance than a serious damaging past is the boxelder beetle, or boxelder bugs sorry, true bugs, you can see the cross pattern on the back again, the the red ones are nymphs.

In other words, the young and then the ones that have more black are the adults of the Box Elder. Bug the Box Elder bug loves to eat seeds of trees like the seeds on a Box Elder tree, they'll often be congregated on the sides of buildings and their waste is a little bit of an issue, but they really don't damage plants very much at all. They can be controlled with a lot of the different organic pest control products that we'll be talking about today. This is also one of the true bugs in this One is called the plant bug, or sharpshooter, there are several in this category, various colors, various sizes, and they all do damage but don't do a whole lot of damage unless you just see a tremendous number of them on a single plant. These very interesting looking little bugs, I stab the plant suck juice out and can be controlled with various products like the essential oil product.

This one's called a century. There are several on the market. They're basically the essential oils of Herbes, things like clove and peppermint and various things that we consider edible plants in a lot of ways. These aren't repellents, these plant these products actually kill insects. They're therefore when you're spraying an essential oil product. You do not want to Use them a broad spectrum spraying because they will kill beneficial insects as well as the past but they weren't very well on these insects that we've been talking about.

Now the beetles as opposed to bugs have a line down the back in the hard shell of the wing covers opens up in the wings are beneath that that's what beetles all look like with obviously some variation. This is a June bug the green June bug and the grub warms the larvae of The Beatles are the past or the the the green gene bug will tend to get in trees and eat fruit that is past being perfectly ripe. When they start doing the fruit starts going downhill. you'll sometimes see the green Junebug itself the adults show up and feed on trees, but most of the damage comes from the grub worms that are in the soil and Some of them are very destructive on plant roots. Now not all grubs are destructive. There are some grub worms, for example, that only eat dead and decaying organic matter in the soil they do not eat plant roots.

And the ones in that category tend to be in the in the beds around larger plants. The most destructive ones will tend to be in the turf and eating on the roots of your grasses. This shows of a grub grub worm have a beetle that is a destructive grub worm and turf. And this very large grub worm is the grub arm is the larva of the Hercules beetle, our rhinoceros beetle, very, very large beetles. They're incredibly interesting. They do some damage, you can say the damage that's been done by this female to this thing bark and she's roughing up the bark cuz she's planting all the positive eggs is what she's doing there, you never see a whole lot of damage.

In fact, a lot of people consider these beetles beneficial because they just feed on organic matter to a large extent and don't bother plants that much. However, every once in a while you'll find that they will get up on plants or they'll get into the the root system of container plants and do some damage to the roots of plants are not real consistent, so you have to play it by ear a little bit. They're easy to control with beneficial nematodes and spinosus id products that we'll talk about in just a little bit. Now in the aphid category, we've got all kinds of problem insects are insects that people consider to be problem past but From mealy bugs that you see here to the normal aphids or green bugs as some people call aphids, they can be called beneficials. As well as pests. You heard me discuss this in the last chapter they are telling you when they're on a plant that that plant is in stress and you need to adjust how your management is for those plants.

Too much water, not enough water, wrong counter fertilizer, contaminated soil, the plants in shade and it should have been in Sun that sort of thing. Whenever you see aphids are very closely Kanda aphids, the mealy bugs, you know that something is amiss with the plant, they're easy to control with water blasts or with soapy water. Very gentle organic controls will control these insects but the main thing you need to do is figure out why they're there in the first place. adjust that. And then you probably won't have the issue again. Some aphids even attack the roots of plants and drenches into the soil with the same products that we spray are the solution.

Now one of the things that you can use is soap one of the fancy soaps on the market is this it's called bio wash. And it is a soap that has very, very small particles is a great cleaner and it was discovered, just serendipitously that when sprayed on plants, it would kill aphids and lice bugs and various kinds of pass very effectively. And it also did something to the health of the plant. It did a cleaning job on the foliage, I think helping with knocking out some fungus problems and bacterial issues and making the plant grow better. So not only with this product do you help get rid of the past but you also help the plants grow to the degree as well. On insect pests even like high flying white flies are considered a pretty tough insect to control. But the the bio wash and some of the other mild controls that we're talking about today are pretty, pretty effective control of white flies.

Now one of the insects it's actually an arachnid kin to the spiders. That is problematic for a lot of plants like tomatoes, and other plants, ornamental plants as well as food crops is the spider mite. The red spider mite is the is the name that's the little critters up in there and they form a web. They can be controlled with any product that contains liquid seaweed or seaweed that is been put into a liquid form. The Garrett juice mixture for example has seaweed in it works pretty well. Just making a spray of seaweed by itself works and there's research going back a long way on how well this technique works for both red spider mites and whiteflies liquid seaweed sprays.

But here's the important thing to remember on spider mites if they exist on your plants, you know without question that your plant is having a problem bringing water up into it properly, there's something amiss with how the water's being pulled into the roots and moved up through the plant. Sometimes that can be because the soil is not prepared well. Too much water being used can cause the issue. Not enough water being used not enough irrigation being used can cause the issue and a lot of times contaminated soil too much or the wrong kind of fertilizer. Again, same thing with some of these other issues. The plant Plants are in stress.

But in the case of red spider mites, the plant is in stress, specifically, in most cases because waters not moving into it properly, and a lot of cases doing the version. The some version of what we call the sick tree treatment like we use to bring trees back into a healthy condition works for plants that have spider mite issues. Now, another very common insect pest is scale insects. The why you see our scale, they come in many sizes and many colors, lots of different species. crape myrtles have been hit by this particular scale in the last few years for some reason, more so than in the past. And some of the scales will look like the bees have half BB welded to the plant.

And very hard when you crush them if there's juice inside the scale, they're still alive and doing damage. If they're dry, they've been killed by a natural predator or parasite, and they're not doing any damage at all. But all of the scale insects can be controlled with some of these same products that we were talking about. oils, horticultural oils being probably the one that's the top of the list. This pretty little insect is called a lice bug. You can see it's droppings.

They're the little black dots. And then the insects are these little icy critters and they usually attack the backsides of leaves of things like sycamore trees and burrow trees and various kinds of plants. But they do quite a bit of damage. They cause an effect of the leaf looking like it's just fading in color. It'll go from green to kind of adult or green to a greenish Brian, and if they're left on the plant, they will continue to do some damage. They never go so far as killing plants but they just make an ugly looking, ugly looking foliage.

Now they can be sprayed, as I mentioned with horticultural oils, which is what this product is here. It's a refined, don't what used to be called dormant oil has been refined and a lot of the impurities taken out of it to a point where horticultural oil can be sprayed in the summertime in the spring in the fall or in the winter anytime you want to do it. And it's an excellent control of the lice bug and some of these other insects as well. You can use the dormant oil to control a lot of the different insects we're talking about here. But dormant oil will kill beneficial insects also. It's a wonderful organic tool.

But you don't want to use it, except on plants that have an issue and where you have an issue that serious enough to risk hurting some of the beneficial insects because the real long term control as we talked yesterday, in great detail in the chapter before this one, the real control of insect pests is to let nature let other insects, other micro organisms control the past problems for you, for the most part, and then you take care of the little spikes that happened from time to time because we're using plants that aren't quite well adapted, you know, pushing the envelope a little bit or doing something like that. One of the really tough insects to control is grasshopper. grasshoppers can come in in huge volume, huge quantities and take out very large plantings in a hurry and people get frustrated. One of the most common questions that I get is how do we control grass OPERS with a non toxic approach, in my opinion, the non toxic answer is the only answer.

And it's in two parts basically the first one is that you can set up a condition on the plants that will repel grasshoppers. So if the previous season you know you've had damage on certain crops and you expect it again you can use what's called kailyn clay spray on the plants as you can see it does put a visible white particle film on the plants This is a pomegranate plant in my backyard As matter of fact. And the kale and clay product the commercial product is called surround. It is basically the same clay that you used to make pyaare but it has been refined and made into very, very small particles so it can go out On an even film way, you can see here this was the first time I ever tried it I really didn't apply very well I didn't, I didn't mix anything in it as a surfactant to make it spread better.

You can see it's a little clumpy looking still works, but doesn't work quite as well as if it covers nice and evenly lock on this Oh Ha Santa's in my herb garden. But it sets up a repelling condition so that the grasshoppers stop feeding and go somewhere else. It also works for other hard to control insects as well. This is what the commercial product looks like it is you know on the exempt list of the EPA is acceptable insect control products It was hard to find for a while but now it's back and pretty easy to find. The second step if you have grasshoppers attacking, especially in small plantings and you need to do something with very careful precision. This product is what I recommend.

It's the active ingredient is called Spinoza. Id or spin Oh sad. One of the commercial products is this Captain Jack's dead bug spray interesting name, but that's what it is. You can see here the active ingredient and the spelling there spin us it is ti n o si D spin Osen. It's made from living organisms originally and turned into a product that is it's probably the atomic weapon of organic pest control products. It'll kill just about any insect.

It has one negative feature and that's the reason why we don't recommend it to be sprayed all over the place but very precisely, where you have a tough problem. It will not kill but disorient humming honeybees fouls up their navigation system temporarily. And that's a concern that we have. And so you don't want to spray it except right on the plants that are having a problem. It will kill the grasshoppers if you need to do it. Now some people like to use name name is the extract of plant the neem tree.

It's the oil from the tree. And there are good and bad products on the market. The name products that are liquid like these are have have to have can have two properties that are a little more worried about actually a lot worried about one of the properties is that there's not a whole lot of active ingredient in the product to start with. And they tend to they don't have a very good shelf they'll tend to go down in efficacy. There are a couple on the market that don't have that problem. They cost more but they are loaded with active ingredient.

And they don't have a shelf problem because they're the This one is dry to dry product as us all you mix it in water and spray it and it is extremely effective at killing hard to control insects. Be careful about the liquid ones that are on the market though as far as investing a lot of money you may not see very good results. It'll vary. In general hot pepper is a good Pest Control that's not really a killing, pest control. It's a repellent. And there are various brand names like you see here.

Various companies, make them and you'll find them pretty easily in the stores and in the distribution. for commercial use, some are registered EPA registered under the pfeffer's exempt law and some are actually have EPA numbers and labels. So it is another choice. Okay, as far as number one on the list of questions that I get, I guess especially in the south or not all over the United States yet we have a big issue with him in Texas and across the south. We actually created the fire ant problem by using so many toxic chemicals on them, they actually changed how they live. They went from having one Queen per mound and the mounds being very far apart to having thousands of mounds per acre and multiple Queen per mound.

That happened after we started spraying things like Myrick from airplanes to try to control them and it didn't work at all. It created a much bigger problem. So the way to control fire ants is with the organic program works very well. First thing you need to know is fires can vary tremendously in size, depending on what the function of the fire it is this largest one of course, is the queen but it just gives you an idea of what they look like the mounds very distinctive and tend to be a little crusted over more uniform mounds than a lot of other ants Mike. The way we recommend controlling them that really works is not this not putting a toxic chemical on the fire ant mound or around the fire at males. A lot of people like this product, I don't see the orcs anywhere near nearly as well as the non toxic approach that we use.

And the first step of the organic treatment of fire ants is to apply. Drama lasses. Yes the same stuff that we use In bed preparation and in potting soils in a broadcast fashion, so you're getting fertilizer value out of out of that when you put it out, but 95% to maybe 99% of the time. When this material is put out on the side the fire ants, hi Taylor. They just are antagonized by the stimulation of biological activity, and they leave. We have a very few cases where this doesn't work.

Usually it's where the fire ant mound is up under a deck or a big slab of concrete or a paved area of some kind. And we have to use a few other techniques. But the basic organic program by itself long term works to keep fire ants why because they don't walk the biological activity they like to have a nice, clean palette that is no close to being sterile because a lot of chemicals and pesticides and a lot fertilizers have been used in an organic, highly bio diverse garden landscape, farm or ranch, you don't see very many fire ant mounds to have to deal with in the first place. But anyway, if you do have a problem of your client if your project has a problem putting out drama classes at 20 pounds, or 1000 square feet is the first step. If that doesn't work, you can go back to the Spinoza product.

There are Spinoza products on the market that are labeled specifically for fire ants, but any of them work and they can be applied directly to the mound. The final thing I'll say is that even if you use the drama lasses and you still have some individual mounds on the property, you can use what we call mound. drench mound Ranch is basically a mixture of compost tea, molasses and warm orange oil or D laminate those three things now that you can buy products are labeled as mountain range and they'll have pretty much that mixture in the product or you can make it yourself. The formulas are always available to you but the basically mixing equal amounts of orange oil, compost tea and, well here's the easiest way rather than tell you to mix three different things together. Let me tell you that really the easiest way to go usually Garrett juice formula, compost tea, vinegar, molasses and seaweed.

We've explained the formula in the courses here, use the Garrett juice formula and into a gallon of Garrett juice. Add two ounces of orange oil. do lots of orange oil per gallon of Garrett juice and drench it right into the mount and don't pour it all over the mountain. They'll they'll take off and run away from it. But what you do that works is you Pour it with a Oh have any kind of a device that has a single stream coming out like you'd put a water in a radiator or just a watering can with the water breaker taken off the end so it goes into into one spot in the middle of the mount. That way it goes it breaks through the crust goes down to the bottom splashes out at the bottom which is where the Queen's normally will be held and then you spread it around on the rest of the mound that will kill out that mound with that one treatment and then the dry molasses helps you with the whole side.

Okay we need to talk about malls and butterflies. Obviously butterflies are beautiful and a benefit to the garden and we want them around some malls are also beautiful as well. But the caterpillars that come from butterflies and malls and that is a mall that's one of the most interesting malls of all but that is a terrific pest. That is the squash vine borer adult when you grow squash, and zucchini and related kind of crops, and the stem just turns into a frezz mess. That's the squash vine borer is a big, quite warm, that's the larva of this beautiful moth and the treatment for it. And the treatment for other.

Caterpillar's is similar. So I want to go through some of these other Caterpillar paths that you run into and then we'll talk about the treatments. This is tent Caterpillar that sets up house hen trees and this is the web worms, what you have in pecans and ash trees and various kinds of trees and shrubs to some degree. Some of the controller caterpillar's is totally natural and You remember from the last chapter we talked about beneficial wasps, and they're all beneficial, but one of the most beneficial that doesn't even sting you is called the recorded loss and this is a recorded female over positing eggs and that Caterpillar and the caterpillar don't know it yet but caterpillars dead because those eggs hatch turn into the other life forms life cycles of the wasp and eat the insides of the worm and kill the worm so you don't have to spray anything at all.

Another Caterpillar is the bag of worms. The the wider control bag of worms is not here when they're hanging down in the plant. Because at that point, it's sealed up if you've ever tried to tear a bag or one of the bags of a bag worm open, you know how dance and how strong they are. You can't get a pest control. Organic are chemical to soak through that bag and kill the worm. Once it's hanging like that the time all you can do at this point is pull the bags off and crush them crush the worm that's inside and throw it into the compost pile.

The only way that you can, oh and the other thing that happens is when the bag is hanging like this, it's cutting in it is wrapped around the stem. So a lot of times it will kill the foliage that's out from the bag warm so it's a pass that needs to be controlled. And here's how we control it when the young bag worms and that when that worm is feeding, it's crawling around with a portion of the bag, like a teepee sticking up in the air crawl around and it's feeding on the leaf as you see there. At that point that whole worm that's feeding is vulnerable to the organic sprays. orange oil spray work pretty good, but no Sid will kill them completely with one spray and again spray just that plant it's in trouble. And you can also control this past with the release of the trick of gramma wasps, which I recommend that everybody do on every every slide.

But the spinosus fries are real strong. Essential Oil sprays or the orange oil which fits in the essential oil category can kill them when they're young and feeding like this and this normally happens in the spring. But you have to keep an eye on the plants and be sure that you catch the time period where they're out there feeding once they're hanging. All you can do is pull them off and destroy them. No spraying will help other caterpillars feed on tomatoes. This is the tobacco hornworm and it's interesting that the tobacco hornworm eats the tomatoes.

It has the red tile and the My horn warm has the black title in each other crops I had one recently at home and my almond verbena. Anyway, they're basically the same insect and the same control is used. Another Caterpillar that's problematic ends up causing holes in Canas and other big leaf plants. It looks like it was shot with a machine gun. And it's done. It's caused because the worms eat the leaf while the leaf is rolled up.

And so that's how you get the series of holes. All these are lepidoptera insects. These are all the larvae of malls including the various green worms and other caterpillars that eat the spinach and kale and and broccoli leaves and various things in the vegetable garden. Also Caterpillar is responsible for The destruction of a lot of pecans This is pecan case bear and what you see there is a waste of the feeding and the waste material of the pecan case bear when you see that the damage has already been done well we want to do is head that off prevent it with the release of trigger gramma wasps are spray products that contain bt Bacillus thuringiensis. And that's what we use for all the caterpillars that I've shown you there as a control Bacillus thuringiensis is sold as Doppel dust and also as thorough aside daffodils dry throw aside is the liquid form and these products contain bt, Bacillus thuringiensis and yes, it is a bacteria and it is a biological it is totally acceptable in an organic program but These products will kill butterflies as well.

So we use them on a limited basis when we really have to use them. It's why I like to release trick or gram loss so much because they will head off the caterpillars and then you don't have to spray the BT products. The subspecies is cursed Aki as you see there, and that's the most common one you'll see just so you are surprised when you see that on the label but you look for bt not the T. I will talk about that one and a little bit. Now some plants are hit by an insect that you can barely see is almost microscopic and it happens to roses and some other plants as well. It's called thrips thrips travel from the soil migrate up in the spring and attack and ruin the flowers of roses. The control is put out beneficial nematodes really early like we've talked about for many different plants.

In the spring early in the spring, late winter, early spring before the buds have opened when they're starting to swell, that's when you really need to be releasing the beneficial nematodes and the spray that you put on the plant and drench into the soil that's helpful is garlic juice and it is simply the the juice out of garlic cloves, very, very effective on thrips and a lot of other troublesome pests. Now when you see this insect in the garden, you need to leave it alone. That's an extremely helpful beneficial that is the egg casing of praying mantis. About 300 baby praying mantis will come out of that egg casing there. This is what it's confused with often and this is a very dangerous past. This is the ASP our push Caterpillar The post Caterpillar is easy to identify because there's real pretty hairdo, real soft hair, but those spines right down the back those long hairs on the back, they're hollow spines, and when they sting you, it not only hurts tremendously, it hurts for a long time because the spines break off in you.

Now this insect comes in several colors. This is why when would you see real pretty hair too, and it's not a good guy. If they fall out a tree down your shirt. It's a real problem. So controlling them with the BT sprays with the benefit with the trick of gram loss but out in the spring with beneficial nematodes that helps as well. All of these beneficials help you control these pests that you don't want to have around.

Again, this is the this is the praying mantis egg casing as opposed to the the aspect That's a real troublesome pest. Now fleas fleas are a problem. Even if you don't have dogs and cats but if you do can be a real issue also ticks the best defense for that well we'll talk about spiders and men but the best defense for fleas and and ticks is beneficial nematodes applied in the soil. orange oil also can be sprayed and is extremely efficient it can it killing the ones they hits, if they're out there active when you need to treat but treating as a preventative, the beneficial nematodes or the best approach. Now I talked yesterday about spiders being beneficial, they are very beneficial. Some of them are dangerous, so two of them are very dangerous.

Really the only two poisonous ones that we have. One is the black widow spider which is easy to identify the red hourglass on the on the Female the male is much skinnier, much thinner and looks different than females are the ones that are really dangerous. This is one that was captured because I wanted to show you what the babies look like. And the nest the way I've have the black widow spider is very easy to identify because it's very dense, very small and very dense. The way it's wrapped together. You don't see a lot of these but you do see some sometimes in the vegetable garden in around the plants and you can accidentally reach in and grab the Black Widow sometimes orange oil sprays, the essential oil sprays like the century and the Spinoza are the ways to kill them if they're around.

This is the second spider that's a problem. That's dangerous. This is the brown recluse gets its name because you don't think Seeing a lot they stay hidden inside and garages and around in boxes and things like that you can accidentally bump into them and they are dangerous if you are bitten, they can be killed easily by doing an extra special job of vacuuming, keeping dust and and box boxes that you don't need out of the garage so that they don't have a lot of hiding places. Spraying with the orange oil sprays and essential oil sprays though is the way to kill them. You won't see him a lot but when you do see him they do need to be killed. They are dangerous.

Orange all comes in several different brand names that are available out there can also be bought mail order. And we'll go through real quickly here. Some photographs of galls because galls you need to know about because they are the result of insect galls are primarily growth on plant tissue after a benign little almost microscopic, in some cases, wasp stings the plant tissue, and this unusual growth happens, which is the home of the protection for the young loss and they're coming off different colors and shapes and sizes. So I'm looking like bloodshot eyeballs, some are very lightweight and real feathery inside, they start out green, and then they turn to this manila folder color. None of these goals are really damaging at all unless you get a huge population out of them on the tree. Some look like stars some look like little aliens came in.

There's some like little bits of cotton on the leaves the plants, some look like cancerous growths, the color will range from why through all sorts of colors to even bright reds. Some look like just a little weird growth in the leaf tissue itself they'll grow little spines out of some leaves. These are all goals that are formed primarily by little insects. If you have these real hard goals in live oak trees that turn black after starting out this tan color, that is a real good sign and these other goals if they're real heavily populated in the tree can also be a sign that the trees in stress and the answer for that is the same answer that you use if you have a woodpecker. sapsucker doing this kind of damage to a tree that can hold in straight lines across are up and down either one in both cases, the golf Heavily population have goals, or this kind of damage to a tree is because the tree is in stress, too deep in the ground, contaminated soil too wet to dry, something is amiss, that's a bigger issue than the past.

There's real data backing up the fact that the bird in this case comes and attacks the tree, because it is able to detect that the tree has concentrated sugar to help solve some problem that it has trays will try to help some illness that they have by concentrating sugars, and that bird can detect it and they come out that's what they're drilling holes for is to get the sweet SAP high in carbohydrates. When you get the tree back back out of stress in a healthy condition. The bird will go bother other trees and the same thing with the golf the golf Just simply slowly fade away. Once the trees back in healthy condition, slugs and snails, I do a lot of damage to plants. They're a generic way to go. Let's put out hot pepper the same crushed red pepper that goes on peaches, put it out real heavily.

You'll see with slugs and snails and pill bugs and Sal bugs, that they'll act like they're liking it at first and then all of a sudden they start disappearing. works pretty well. coffee grounds seem to work very well. Lava sand applied to the surface of the soil seems to work to a great degree. And then the commercial products that we found work the best are called sluggo actually made by chemical company but they fit into an organic program because they're basically an iron based product. And they, they're great they work very well the sluggo is for slugs and snails the slug plus slugs and snails but also pill bugs and sell bugs.

As well. And for mosquitoes the thing that works the best, although nothing is perfect for mosquitoes just nothing exists, I'm sorry to tell you that the mosquitoes are the toughest of all the insects to control because they, they can change. They can change their metabolism. They can change their life cycle. They can change, what kind of conditions they can take, and they can adapt to certain pest controls. It's a frustrating thing.

But one of the ones I have the hardest time adjusting to is a biological and it's called bti. Instead of bt lock we control caterpillar's with Bacillus thuringiensis. This is Bacillus thuringiensis, but it's Bacillus thuringiensis. Israel insists it's available in dunks these can be thrown in the water it kills the larvae of the mosquitoes before they ever turn into a It's also available in a granular form so you can throw it out into the water. That way can be used in containers and Koi ponds without hurting the fish without hurting plants. Totally organic, but it's Bacillus thuringiensis.

And in this case, so species, Israel insists, and it's Israel insists because this bacillus was actually found in draw stream beds in Israel, but it's specifically for mosquitoes, fungus gnats, black flies, and a few other nasty pass doesn't hurt other beneficial insects. Doesn't hurt your Koi, if you put it in the water to kill the larvae and the water doesn't hurt them at all don't hurt the plants. Now what we found with mosquitoes is that there are incredibly adaptable they can figure out how to stop being repelled by certain spring certain products like in vary their metabolism, they can vary their lifespan they can, they can adapt, it's just very frustrating. So what we recommend doing is using the bti granulars. And the the dunks can be put in water kill the larvae there, the liquid bti products can be sprayed on the entire site and get into the little micro sites micro breeding sites that are on a site.

In other words, leaf that holds water, a little cap from a bottle that's holding a little bit of water. The axles the the joints on plants a lot of times are where the stem meets the trunk. Little tiny areas of water can be enough for mosquito breeding and when you're spraying this bti all over the whole site. You're getting it to those sites so it does a great job. But what we found that gives them basket control is that you use bti spray one time the next time you might use cedar oil or put out cedar flakes on the side, they repel mosquitoes very well the next time an essential oil, something like he century and the next time garlic or garlic, dry on the ground, garlic sprayed liquid on the site vary the the applications the treatments, in other words gives you the best control of mosquitoes it's a little more trouble, but it really does make a difference.

We found that out because spraying VTL over the whole side gave great results for a while and then after a while, it worked not quite as well. I don't think they ever completely adapt to bti but they get to a point where they get away from it to avoid it. But they're still out there and can come back in and you need other tools to help propel them even more effectively. This little beast is the land planarian and it's also called the flat worm. And this flat worm is is bad guy looks like an earthworm with a hammerhead shark head almost they vary in length from a few inches to as long as a foot and a half. They eat and destroy earthworms so they're they're very harmful to organic gardeners and can really do a lot of damage to people that are in the business of growing earthworms you know they're in the earthworm castings business are there growing earthworms to sale but it can also hurt you if you have a vegetable garden herb garden or landscaping if you need earthworms and course we all do the earthworms are healthy part of the soil to kill them.

You can't just cut them up because every little piece or grow back into a new flatworm. So what you have to do is destroy the end Warm, picked them up and put them into a jar with orange oil or spray with orange oil or essential oil so completely that it just melts the the warm away. You can sometimes kill them with spinosus id pretty effectively but the best thing to do when you see him is to literally pick them up and put them into a glass jar and kill him with orange oil so you know that they're dead because any little piece that's left can rejuvenate into more past. Now, snakes scare people a lot but snakes are very beneficial. We'll talk about them in more detail but the snakes that you'll run into for the most part are beneficial. Most of them like the garter snake on this home this repellent is not only not poisonous, not aggressive won't bite you at all.

Actually very gentle snake. In addition to that they help control rodents as all snakes do. They're excellent controls of moles, voles and rats and a lot of other things that are big passed around the the garden in the landscape. The other thing I wanted you to know is this snake repellent and all other snake repellents that are on the market that we've tested do not work very well to repel snakes. So the best thing to do is understand that the snakes are more afraid of you than you are of them. Most of them are non venomous, and they are all beneficial.

I wish that for the people that are terrified of snakes that these repellents would work, but they don't seem to work very well. Now, flies we've talked about in the previous chapter that for the most part very beneficial, but a lot of them are a nuisance. You know, come around when you're eating, try land on your food, things like that. One of the effective ways to repel some of the nuisance flies. This is actually a restaurant in Dallas using this as an effective control and it really does work. It works in barns and stables and restaurants and porches and that is to simply fill a clear bag full of water and hang it.

There's something about the reflection in it or something that's created by that simple procedure that is extremely effective at running the flies away from the area. You do have to keep the bag clean once it gets dusty, and that's probably indicating that it's the reflection that's working there. But as soon as it's dusty, you have to replace it or clean the bag for it to continue to work well. Now as we talked in the previous chapter, all wasps are beneficial. But the one that is really dangerous is the Hornet. And the one we have in Texas and it's in other states as well.

We give it the name, the Texas the true Texas yellow jacket, bills this beautiful NASS, this is unusual. This was on a porch. They're normally underground, but it would look the same underground, but that particular wash does need to be controlled. And the way to control it is to find the opening to the underground nest or in the case of the one on the porch. You need to hire a professional to take care of that one that is very dangerous to handle yourself. The ones in the ground you can handle yourself if you promise to be careful, but a professional coming in for that might be best as well.

You find the opening you pour essential oil mixed with water like you would spray it into the hole and then jam a rock or a big stick into the hole. You can use soapy Water, but the essential oils are best. The spin ocean product is probably stronger than you even need but could be used as well. But great care to pour it in, jam something in the opening without getting stung, and leave it there and they'll all be killed. They are dangerous, they are aggressive and they will chase you down, asked me how I know. Now what other really interesting technique for controlling insects around the house.

You see in the background here this is actually shot out of a movie. But this is a technique I've used in my own properties, my own house our office. There are developments now being made where this technique is being used. It was started in Savannah, Georgia, by free slaves A long time ago. And it's called paint blue paint hates referring to ghosts and God And it was somehow figured out or thought at least believed that the blue would keep the Hanks away. Because when it was used it was probably used originally because of decorative reasons, people like the soothing color.

But anyway, people noticed that it kept last from building nest mud dobbers from building nest, barn swallows and other insects from building cobwebs from developing. In other words, it kept the eaves completely clean of insects and I thought, well, if it did, that probably keeps the Heinz away too. And that's how it got its name. But anyway, it's very soothing color. Anyway, and it works. It works beautifully.

I've put paint blue paint up in areas and it's kept the eaves clean for over four years so far. There's More information about all of this pest control in my book that Malcolm back and I did the Texas bug booth, the good, the bad and the ugly and it does cover all of the insects that we've talked about today and some other details that might be helpful for you.