Okay guys, I’m excited to finally share with you the results of the get-rid-of-nasty-garden-bug experiment I’ve been conducting on my poor, bedraggled basil plants and trumpet vine that I shared a bit about here. I know I’ve teased you with my testing for long enough – we all deal with bugs, so I know you’ll be as happy to see the results as I was!
The background to this experiment is a tale known to many organic gardeners (and maybe even would-be gardeners who gave up when faced with seemingly destroyed plants?): years of either ignoring it (and losing plants or living with damaged plants) or trying many different remedies from diatomaceous earth (works on many things though tedious to apply, sometimes hard to find, needs a lot of reapplication, may kill good bugs) to soap and water (this never really did much in my garden). And for some reason, while I don’t have much of a problem beyond cucumber beetles in our large, main garden (and most years I don’t lose plants to them), our herb garden hosts something(s) that have eaten the basil every year since we added it to our backyard. I created this spray last year (adapted from a Keeper of the Home article) to use on them, but didn’t really keep track of it, although I do remember that it worked.