[euge]

I think a good DIY organic pesticide is a glass/can of beer, equal amount water, a handful of chewing tobacco and some dishsoap. You mix the beer, water and tobacco and make a tea at room temp, strain it when ready and add the soap. Mix then store/add to spray bottle.

The little bastards don't like it and the spray will wash off come picking time.

[Slowbrew]

No zucchini?  Man, zucchini on the grill is one of my favorite things to eat.

Yeah, we love zukes.  Grilled is awesome, but I even like to grate it and mix it in with taco meat.

I like to mix 'em with egg, onion, bread crumbs, whatever and make zucchini cakes.

mmmmmmmmm

Going to be growing Zukes for the first time this year. Anyone have any tips? Do they grow like cucumbers or do they sprawl out further like winter squash? Do tomato cages work well for them? Don't know the exact variety of seeds I have, but it's one of the typical straight green varieties from Burpee.

Pick them young, the fruit grow fast!

The ones we grow are like other squash, sprawling all over.  I've never tried them with tomato cages, but I'm not sure it would work.  They grow on the ground, not up on a structure - which isn't to say they won't, but it doesn't seem to be their inclination.  Maybe someone else has tried it.

All this sounds wonderful, but the last time we grew zuchini, we had one plant, and it produced a minimum of two per day, yes that's 14 a week, at least, the plant was a monster.  Real easy to get burnt out, man.  We ran out of people to give them to.  Cucumbers are a different story, I make pickles so none go to waste.  Okra grow like madness too, but we roast 'em or pickle them too and they go fast.  We will be growing eggplant again this year.  I like them roasted on the grill or in the oven, fried, or in baba ghanouj.

Zucchini has always been feast or famine in my gardens.  I've planted 6 hills and harvested no fruit and I've planted one hill and had more than I could give away and everything in between the 2 extremes.  They are also elusive little devils, you can swear you've looked under every leaf, everyday and still find one two feet long and 6 inches in diameter.   

Paul

[erockrph]

I think a good DIY organic pesticide is a glass/can of beer, equal amount water, a handful of chewing tobacco and some dishsoap. You mix the beer, water and tobacco and make a tea at room temp, strain it when ready and add the soap. Mix then store/add to spray bottle.

The little bastards don't like it and the spray will wash off come picking time.

That is the most manly thing I've heard as far as gardening goes. I'll have to try it. The only question is whether to use stout or IPA and whether to use Skoal or Red Man.

[tschmidlin]

All this sounds wonderful, but the last time we grew zuchini, we had one plant, and it produced a minimum of two per day, yes that's 14 a week, at least, the plant was a monster.  Real easy to get burnt out, man.  We ran out of people to give them to.  Cucumbers are a different story, I make pickles so none go to waste.  Okra grow like madness too, but we roast 'em or pickle them too and they go fast.  We will be growing eggplant again this year.  I like them roasted on the grill or in the oven, fried, or in baba ghanouj.

Have you tried pickled zucchini?

[hoser]

I think a good DIY organic pesticide is a glass/can of beer, equal amount water, a handful of chewing tobacco and some dishsoap. You mix the beer, water and tobacco and make a tea at room temp, strain it when ready and add the soap. Mix then store/add to spray bottle.

The little bastards don't like it and the spray will wash off come picking time.

I don't know if I would call a pesticide "organic" if it includes a handful of chewing tobacco.  As someone who used to chew and knows what is in chewing tobacco, I certainly would not call it organic! There may be as many chemicals if not more in a can of chew than a bottle of pestide. But, I haven't chewed in years, so maybe they have chewing tobacco that is organic now since everything these days seems to be "organic"

[morticaixavier]

I think a good DIY organic pesticide is a glass/can of beer, equal amount water, a handful of chewing tobacco and some dishsoap. You mix the beer, water and tobacco and make a tea at room temp, strain it when ready and add the soap. Mix then store/add to spray bottle.

The little bastards don't like it and the spray will wash off come picking time.

I don't know if I would call a pesticide "organic" if it includes a handful of chewing tobacco.  As someone who used to chew and knows what is in chewing tobacco, I certainly would not call it organic! There may be as many chemicals if not more in a can of chew than a bottle of pestide. But, I haven't chewed in years, so maybe they have chewing tobacco that is organic now since everything these days seems to be "organic"

don't know about chaw but you can get organic rolling tobacco that would work as well. It's pretty expensive but if you are trying hard. alternatly you could grow some tobacco you self and make your own. Actually tobacco makes a good companion plant for a lot of other plants to help discourage the bugs in the first place.

The other thing to try, depending on how much space you have, is crop rotation. If you plant the squash in the same place, or close to the same place every year the bugs know where to find it, if you can plant it some distance away from any place a susceptible crop has been grown in the last 4 years or so it can really help reduce pests.

When you are trying to reduce your spraying it's important to remember that 'organic' or 'sustainable' or 'natural' pest control is about control not elimination. You will still have bugs but you try to reduce the numbers while encouraging the plants to grow so fast they can stand up to the bugs. This is accomplished by slowely building your soil health and your little mini ecosystem so that you have balance and the predator/prey relationships in the soil, the air and on the plants are more in balance. Bat boxes can help control insects over time, raptor habitat can help control bird theft and rodent theft. Chickens or ducks can help control slugs and bugs as well as fertlizing the area in which they live and aerating the soil some.

There really isn't a good quick organic way to control bugs except maybe BT, pyrethrum (sp?) copper sulfate (this is actually for mildew I believe), and a few other 'approved' organic pesticides. I have had some luck with a soap, oil, garlic, pepper mix and adding some tobacco to that would help as well. also Diatomaceous Earth can be used to control ants which tend to encourage other unwanted creatures and should work against any hard bodied insect problem. But you have to reapply any time it gets wet. And make sure to get food grade DE as the other stuff (like for pool filters) is not good for your lungs or your pets.

DE can also be dusted on dogs and cats to control fleas, around the perimiter of your house to keep ants out, etc.

[redbeerman]

All this sounds wonderful, but the last time we grew zuchini, we had one plant, and it produced a minimum of two per day, yes that's 14 a week, at least, the plant was a monster.  Real easy to get burnt out, man.  We ran out of people to give them to.  Cucumbers are a different story, I make pickles so none go to waste.  Okra grow like madness too, but we roast 'em or pickle them too and they go fast.  We will be growing eggplant again this year.  I like them roasted on the grill or in the oven, fried, or in baba ghanouj.

Have you tried pickled zucchini?

Honestly Tom, I may have had a sweet/sour zuchini pickle before that was pretty good, but most of what I have made at home was dill or hot/sour.  i don't think zukes have the snap that cukes have either, although pickling lime may improve that.

[phillamb168]

Things are going nicely at Le Ferme de la ferme des petits agneaux.

We canned some grocery store cucs to try to do our very own dill pickles. Success. Next time I won't use the pre-mixed stuff and will do it myself with fresh dill, etc.



We also have corn growing quite nicely



And a metric ton of jalapenos, poblanos, sweet peppers and san marzano tomatoes:



Can't wait.

[corkybstewart]

Phil,
Do any of your neighbors have a good recipe for something like Amora or Maille cornichons?  I've got about 40 cuke vines growing and my goal is to be able to pick the cukes when they're less than 2 inches long and make a similar pickle.  My daughter can eat a 500g jar of those pickles in an afternoon so I'd like to have lots of jars of them on hand, but I need a good close recipe for them.

[phillamb168]

Phil,
Do any of your neighbors have a good recipe for something like Amora or Maille cornichons?  I've got about 40 cuke vines growing and my goal is to be able to pick the cukes when they're less than 2 inches long and make a similar pickle.  My daughter can eat a 500g jar of those pickles in an afternoon so I'd like to have lots of jars of them on hand, but I need a good close recipe for them.

Oh jeez, now that I do not know. I will ask around!

[morticaixavier]

Things are going nicely at Le Ferme de la ferme des petits agneaux.

The Farm of the farm of the small lambs? cute.

[bo]

Things are going nicely at Le Ferme de la ferme des petits agneaux.

The Farm of the farm of the small lambs? cute.

That reminds me, I haven't watched Silence of the Lambs lately.

[euge]

Things are going nicely at Le Ferme de la ferme des petits agneaux.

The Farm of the farm of the small lambs? cute.

That reminds me, I haven't watched Silence of the Lambs lately.

"Le silence des Agneaux"

Or better: L'agneau silencieux la ferme...?

[punatic]

Il frotte la lotion sur sa peau, sinon elle obtient le tuyau encore.

[phillamb168]

I hate typos!