Organic Pest Control- How to Build a Garden That Doesn’t Need Sprays

Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. Today we have another exciting episode for you and this is my last episode from the 2023 Heirloom Expo here in Ventura, California. This episode is a whole dedicated episode to my friends at the Rincon Vitova Insectuaries. What they offer you guys is your solution for your pests even beyond organically, because yeah, you could use an organic spray, but that's not always the best. What's best is to use practices so you don't attract the bugs in the first place, number one. Number two, use beneficial insects in your garden so that they take care of all the pests. And of course, use some of the best growing practices so your plants create resiliency so they don't get the pests in the first place. And here's the thing guys, if you guys want to know how to deal with aphids or whiteflies or whatever pests you got, don't leave a comment and ask in the comments down below. Rincon Vitova has an amazing service. They will offer you for free, and we're going to make them quite busy there, because what you're going to do is you're going to call them at 800-248-BUGS, right, toll-free number, right, if you're in the local area, you can also call 805-643-5407, and you're going to say, Rincon Vitova, I saw you on John Kohler's show, how do I deal with aphids? Because you are the experts. When I got bugs and I can't deal with them or don't know what to do, I call Rincon Vitova because they will consult with you over the phone and say, oh, you got this on these plants, you're going to get this beneficial insect, you're going to plant these companion plants around it, you're going to get these traps or whatever they're going to tell you, I don't really know, and they're going to help you out and get you the answer you need from the best company that I found that have been doing this kind of work for over 50 years, I mean, one of the oldest companies in the country that's still in business helping people use beneficial and biologics to control insects in a natural way without putting harmful pesticides and toxins on your plants. So what I want to do first is we're going to go ahead and give you guys a quick tour of their booth and some of the different protocols they use, and then we're going to sit down with Ron and we're going to get, and he's going to show you guys the top 5 insects that your garden probably gets and how he would deal with them in a natural method in a short condensed version. Of course, if you want the long version, Ron is a wealth of knowledge as well as the other staff people at Rincon Vitova, they could probably sit and talk to you for like 10 minutes on all the things you could do, because it's not just like one thing. One thing may not work, the next thing may not work, but the third thing will work, or the fourth thing, or the fifth thing, because there's always many solutions to a problem, and unfortunately in the modern chemical age, people think, oh, you got bugs, then use this chemical spray and it kills everything, and yes, it kills everything, including yourself, so don't use chemicals. Alright, so this is probably the least exciting part of their booth here, and probably most people would walk by it, but I would say this is probably the most important part. What all these seeds are, these are basically habitat seeds, so these will attract beneficial insects to your garden, so if you attract beneficial insects and they're already living in your garden and you get bad bugs, the good bugs are there already to kick their butt and to eat them and to do whatever they're going to do to them, so that you don't have the bad bug problem. Most gardeners forget about growing habitat seeds that are going to attract beneficials to your garden. In addition, they have other things you could plant to improve the soil condition, and all these kind of things, so that's why I want to cover this first, because it's like the ground floor that you should have already been doing, and if you're not, you could call Rincon Bytova and say, hey, Rincon Bytova, I live in Vallejo, California, what plants should I plant to attract the beneficials in my garden? Hey, I live in Kentucky, they're going to help you out with some plants in Kentucky that you guys could plant to attract beneficials, so that hopefully you could prevent bugs from getting into your garden in the first place. So the next thing you guys want to do if you get bugs is probably get some beneficial insects and bring them into your garden, because maybe they're not already there, because your neighbor sprays, you used to spray on your property, and they're basically out of the ecosystem, so you could bring them back to the ecosystem and encourage them to grow so that they hang out so in future years you won't get outbreaks. So that's what they're doing over here, they have some green lacewings, so if you guys could look inside here, these are the lacewings, these eat like the soft-bodied insects, like the aphids and the whiteflies, and they can ship them to you in these little cells that will then hatch. These are some of the little egg things or whatever, oh and there's a little larvae thing right there, if you guys could see that crawling around, and they'll hatch into the lacewings, and they're voracious eaters once they hatch. So in here they're basically growing the lindorus, which is basically, it'll eat the scale, so if you get scale on your plants, that's what they're growing in here, there's a few of them hanging out in there somewhere. And of course if you guys have horses or like me I get a lot of flies, you can get the parasitic wasps for the flies that will basically eat the fly larvae and eat the fly larvae out so that you won't have the fly issue anymore. So yeah that's definitely one layer and they grow a lot of the bugs at Rincon Vitova Insectaries, a lot of bug sellers online don't actually grow the bugs, they're just a reseller from somebody else, so I always encourage you guys to go directly to the farmer that is growing the bugs because then you'll get the freshest bugs, they're going to have higher survivability and put more beneficials into your garden. So you guys learned the first step, increasing the habitat and making a better habitat to attract beneficials. Number two, bring in the beneficials if you don't have them already in your area. Number three, and the last one I'm going to talk about today, is using some products. So if you've got mosquitoes, you can get these mosquito donkeys, I use these myself, it's a bacteria that'll kill mosquitoes. They got different kind of slug saloons and slug traps that kills the slugs, this is the new one I saw today that I really like, and basically the slugs go in and then they can't come back out because the door shuts behind them, so I love that a lot. They have lots of different products like the mosquito carrier, outdoor fly traps, these things smell like heck, but they work, I use them in my garden, while they do sell them you can also get them at your local big box store. But a lot of these products you can't outsource at a big box store like the gourmet ant bait, this is only sold to the industry, and this will basically, it's a honeydew formula, I actually use this in my garden to attract the ants, they eat it up, and then in a few weeks you'll see the ant population is reduced significantly. This is another ant control, and they have lots of different controls for different repellents, this is a hot wax repellent, you can make your own of course, neem oil, one of my favorites, this is the Dipel, so this is good for the caterpillars, if you've got caterpillars eating your kale, and even for like hornworms, BT, that'll work on that, and they've got so many different other products that you guys can use, and I'm not even familiar with all of them. Oh and another thing of course is the sticky traps, sticky traps, super important, super critical, another way to trap things like the white flies and other flies that'll infect So I'm not the expert in this stuff, I'm not going to claim to be, I know a few of the things and how to use these things, but we're going to get Ron, one of the owners at Rincon Vitova, and we're going to go over the top 5 pests that your garden may be afflicted with, and he's going to show you guys how to deal with it the best way, beyond organically, because you're not just spraying, you're trying to make it so that the bugs don't come to your garden at first, and then use beneficials to take care of it. Alright so now I have the pleasure of interviewing Ron Whitehurst, who's an organic pest control advisor and co-owner, along with his beautiful and amazing wife, who also knows a lot because it's actually a family business for her, her dad started it actually over 50 years ago, and we're going to get up to share with you guys his expert knowledge with you to deal with the top 5 pests that you may be getting in your vegetable garden. So Ron, the first thing is, why do you get into organic pest control when most of the world, and if you go to the big box store, most of what they sell is all these toxic chemicals, why should people not use the easy toxic chemical in their garden instead, try to do it more naturally? My father-in-law, who started the company, Everett Dietrich, we refer to him as D, was really alarmed at the people who farmed the flowers, that he knew that you didn't need any toxic pesticides to grow your fruit, vegetables, fiber, medicine, whatever. And so, we work with farmers, you know, taking them, you know, figuratively, by taking them by the hand to lead them through the process of building life on their farm, so that they could grow the beneficial linseeds by the way that they plant. So if you're spending lots of money on chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides, that's going to decrease your profitability, that's overhead, that's expensive. And so, if you can work with nature, you get all those ecological services for free. You're getting nitrogen from the air, you're making best use of the photosynthetic energy from the sun, you're mobilizing the nutrients from the soil using the beneficial microbe. And so, it's easier, cheaper, and much healthier. Much healthier. That's the part that's really important to me. I mean, what if people are using pesticides and they have, you know, young kids or even pets? That could be... Have you heard any stories about people getting poisoned from pesticides? Yeah. There's lots of stories about somebody who was using the chemical pesticides and they noticed that, oh, this kid next door came down with cancer and, gee, that cancer is associated with certain pesticides. And so, he's thinking, oh my God, you know, I heard it. My actions caused that guy to have cancer. Substantially. So, he started the Clean Growers Group up in Central Florida, California. And some family went to the Monterey Aquarium and they saw an exhibit of how the pesticides were killing the sea life along the ocean or the kelp forest and so on. And they went back home and they decided, no more. We're not going to be contributing to killing off the kelp, the sea otters, the starfish, all these incredible creatures that warm this beautiful underwater forest along our coast. And so, there's more and more stories of people coming to this crisis point where they just decided, no more, and going to work with nature instead of trying to beat her into submission. Yeah. I mean, that's the amazing thing is nature occurred before pesticides. People were using these organic methods before pesticides, but then the pesticide companies got big. They do a lot of advertising. They're basically the only product you could find in a lot of big box stores with maybe like a handful of organic options that may not even work that good because they're not the best. It's just what the big box store can sell to you that you're not going to find at Rink on Vitova, right? So it makes it easier for people. So that's why I want to do this video for you guys to share with you guys the top five pests and how to deal with them naturally, organically, and the best way. So Ron, what's the number one pest that you get called about at Rink on Vitova and how do you deal with it? How would you deal with it? Right. Aphids. Yeah. I get it. Almost every gardener has aphids sometime during the year. Usually it's when it's still a little cold out and you see these aphids covering the fast growing tips of the plant. They suck out the sugars, the juice. Yep. They love that. Nice. They love nitrogen. Yeah. So we've got a number of beneficial insects that eat them, but if we look at a structured program to manage them using the least intense, least disruptive techniques first, you pull out your spray gun on the edge of your hose. Yeah. I do that all the time. I spray them off with water. I don't even use anything. And I just keep doing it every single day and then they usually disappear. Yeah. And no chemicals except actually the chemicals H2O. And so you're basically just knocking them off in a strictly ordered response. And then the next response would be to put a little soap in with the water. So soapy water is a dandy pesticide. We're against all toxic pesticides, but soapy water is a dandy pesticide and it's been used for what? A thousand years or so. And we know how to use it. You don't drink too much of it. You don't get it in your eyes. Soap. Yeah. We know the stuff. So when we're talking about aphids, we need to talk about ecology also. That ants farm aphids just like we farm dairy cows, that they carry them up to the soft tender growing tips of the plant and they start their backs and it's like the sugary poop that they actually, and take that back and feed it to the queens of the colony. And so when a lacewing larvae or a ladybug comes along to try to eat that aphid, they get pissed because they're trying to squirt their sugar, their candy. And we get pissed when somebody tries to steal your candy. Well my fruit, not my candy, I give it away. Your nature's candy. And so they drive away the lacewing, ladybug, surfeit flies, that sort of thing. And so if you've got to get control of the aphids, you need to manage the ants to the whole of it. And you can use a boric acid, sugar and water, bait in some kind of plastic container that will let the ants come in and they'll come back out again. They've got some designs for that. And you can also, if you can identify where the colony is, you can disrupt that. Dig into it with a shovel, spadey cork, or something like that. You don't have to physically dig it up, just kind of break up the colony. So they have to rebuild the colony and put their attention on doing that versus... We're farming aphids. Aphids are. Oh yeah. You're not allowed to fry. Yeah, there it is. And then lacewing is a really good predator, general predator, and a lot of times they stop to eat insides. And so you can get some lacewing and put those out. If you have a good-sized garden or a greenhouse, and you love this little aphid myth, it's like a little teeny tiny mosquito, and that mama flies around and finds colonies of aphids and they'll lay a little egg in there. And then that egg will hatch and turns into this little orange maggot, and you can spear the aphids and throw them off of the plant. And so it leaves your plant nice and clean from the aphid. And then after they eat a bunch of aphids, they drop to the soil, you bait and then repeat the life cycle. So they stay there. Oh. A lot of people love the ladybugs for... When are ladybugs really effective? I release ladybugs so many times. It didn't really seem to help. They seemed to fly away. Right. So the ladybugs that are collected up in the mountains where they hibernate during the wintertime are tickle. They're here today and gone tomorrow. And so you can attract the ladybugs that are in the neighborhood by mixing up equal parts of sugar and dried brewer's yeast. And... What kind of seeds? Dried brewer's. Dried brewer's yeast. It's like... Yeah, got it. Like nutrition yeast. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And one part yeast, one part sugar. And then mix that with some water. And then you can take a little paintbrush and kind of flip that onto the plant. That simulates the condition where the plant is just sticky with the honeydew, the sugary fruit from the aphid without getting plant damage. And that will dry in the lacewing ladybugs and serpentflies. The man-eating aphids. You don't caught anything. You know, you can maybe buy the sugar and use, but you know, hopefully you're doing that anyway. And then there's some, I don't know, some parasitic wasps. So you have... Once you bring the numbers down with the predators, you know, the lacewing and ladybug, then you can reduce the number further by putting out some little parasitic wasps. So predators, good for bringing numbers down generally, but ladybugs like a lot of food in one place. And so they will bring the numbers down a good bit, but they won't clean up completely. And so the parasitic wasps, the aphidius and the phthalini, ethylionis, that will finish cleaning it up. And if you have a lot of aphids and a lot of plants, then it makes sense to get some bradiveros and some ptericides to have that mix. Yeah, for many, it's beneficial because one or the other may work better or worse. And, you know, every environment is a little bit different. Every garden is different. And this is to take care of the problem today, but we like to think long term. Prevention is better than, you know, taking a drug, like eating healthy and, you know, getting an egg later because you're late. So along the health idea, you want to have a healthy ecology, a healthy environment. So by planting a mixture of different flowering plants, you can attract the lacewings that the lacewing adults will be the paneling nectar. You know, we're adults here, so if they're happening for the adults, then they're going to lay the legs. So the next year they're going to have the ribaries. Right. And then. So what are the things you would plant to attract the adults? Oh, well, listen, is there a nice short growing plant, grows about six, six, eight inches tall, and it kind of fits in here and there to kind of plug it in different places in your garden. You don't need too much. We talk in terms of like, you know, one percent of your your garden area or your farm area for biological control. You got one percent of the growing area and habitat. You're probably good as far as. Wow. So that's not even that much space. Yeah. Wonderful. And so the alyssum is really good, dill was fantastic, some of the seed dills and so on. Coriander, cilantro, fennel and some of these other ones are really good. And then if you're for your home garden, you want some herbs to go along with your veg, right? OK, so a lot of the culinary is a fantastic habitat plant for drawing in the beneficial insects. Pineapple, sage, probably one of the other. Basil, almond, cranberry, thyme, oregano, all of those have a nice flower that attract the beneficial insects. And you can eat, you know, right. Wow. Double D. So we talk about stacking a fortune in primate culture in there. So so everything's got to have multiple functions, multiple uses and same thing. Wonderful. So that kind of covers a lot of things for aphids. Well, they're real popular. And I'm sure there's even more things that he's not even covering in this episode. I'm like, you got to condense it, Ron, and we already have, I don't even know, five, ten minutes for you to be done. So, Ron, what's the second biggest pest that you get called about at Rincon Victoria in vegetable gardens? Spider mite. I got spider mites in my summer garden. It'll be Arlene's seed. I don't tell nobody. So spider mites like a hot and dry. That's something that's where I live. I can't. That's a solution. There you go. It's an organic solution. It's an environment, right? It's a yeah, I'm fighting the environment to take you in your environment to have the right pest. So so if you spray the plants with just plain water, water, it cools them off and makes the humid atmosphere more humid. So I should be using drift. I should be using overhead spray in the desert. It makes lots of sense. That's one of the interesting things that that we talk about using water efficiently, efficiently, and and the drip irrigation is fantastic for getting the most out of every little drop of water. It's on your you're missing out on, you know, the simulated grain. Exactly. In the humidity. Yeah. So maybe getting a mister to miss on not wasting water and overhead spring, but just misting a little bit to make a little bit more humid in my environment. Right. So one of the things you can do is put out a couple of the right hooked up to a timer that, you know, like a misting veg timer. And this one comes on, you know, for a minute every hour doing, you know, those really hot days with spider mites just take over here. Some say you can miss the plants with just plain water and then, you know, been looking a lot cooler feeding as a transitional strategy. So while you're building the life in the soil, you can spray leaves with a nutrient solution and with beneficial microbes to feed the plants directly and make up for any of the nutrient deficiencies in the soil. And then what would be what you would you say is a DIY? I see. Simple. You take about a quart of compost, especially your home made compost. It's lots of diversity for your kitchen scraps. Helpfully, I'll be with a diverse diet. OK, and put that in a bucket about half full of water. Neither stir vigorously like a broomstick or if you're real fancy. That's a pate stir, an electric drill and there's a pizza shed out of it. And then strain out the chunky bits and they mix that with some molasses and some seaweed and then spray that all here. And now the pollinized the leaf surface with beneficial microbes. And it's got some surfactant effects. And that will kind of make the water wetter and it'll feed the the the plant to make up for deficiencies. A lot of people say that potassium deficiency, you know, is they make the place more attractive to the that end or to the pest insects, to the spider mites. And so, you know, just kind of thinking longer nutritional on it. They have seen some of it. And then there's all kinds of predator mites that we have some that are like hot and dry, some like a lot of noise, some that are kind of media and so on. And so we can figure out what your usual temperature and humidity is and then pick up those, the predatory mite that loves to work in those conditions. And I say really some of those credit mites, they feed on pest mites that grow on all, I mean, you know, the human population. And of course, this works really great when there's a small number of the pest mites and so you can put out just as long number of the predator mites. Catch it early instead of later in the season. Right. So you've got some kind of plant that that, you know, it's going to have spider mites, you know, in a month and a half, you know, if we get a little bit of the predator mites. Yeah, yeah. And then if you're setting up a greenhouse, it's really great if you put in a combination of mites. There's Hypoaspis predatory mite, now known as Stratioleolapse, just rolls off the title. And they live in the soil. And so if you put some of those in and there's some places, mites that roam all over the place and that would get you kind of some mites, you know, can go there. And then Californicus is kind of a general purpose mite that does well with humid conditions and dry conditions. And so like your Calnibus grow or whatever, it's really good to start with a combination of something like three, four or five different predator mites. You know, when you just set up your grow, where it's setting up for you and the preventative measure. Or, you know, in the Midwest, when you're bringing your plants into the greenhouse and on and then as soon as they get it's all closed up, it's out of the flow of the natural federation. So that pretty much covers the spider mites. So Ron, I'm surprised you didn't say spray something on the spider mites to kill them. You recommended actually different approaches in spraying. Why isn't spraying good on spider mites? Or why did you mention that? I did. Oh, you did. So we want you to spray something good on them. So we're not against spraying, just spray the good stuff, like compost tea, compost extract, some kind of sugar, sugar, molasses, you know, crude extract, whatever. And seaweed, which is a good nutritional source. So spray the good stuff. Wow. Not the bat. Yeah. Wow. Because if people spray the bat stuff, it doesn't work. So, so guys have the thing about spraying things, you know, and so, um, you know, give them something good to spray at their sprayer. And that's some wisdom right there. That, that's that guy thing, you know? Okay. All right. So what's the pest number three that you get called about? Thrips. I got thrips on my, um, water spinach and also sometimes my peppers. Yeah. And, and cannabis and, and, uh, basil on the greenhouse, even on, uh, uh, other culinary herbs and stuff like that. Um, they softly see, um, uh, greens and stuff like that. Uh, and then an avocado grows. So there's another thrips that, uh, the avocado thrips that, um, um, makes the, uh, avocados look like potatoes. Oh, wow. Oh yeah. I've seen that when I buy some sometimes. Yeah. That's what it is. It's thrip damage. Yep. So, um, thrips also don't like water. And, and so, uh, some people will, um, uh, overhead water and that will have to increase the thrips by itself. Um, but, um, you can, uh, give it a nectar punch with these, um, uh, insect eating Neanderthals. They're called, uh, Steineme, uh, Feltier, uh, Essex for short. And, uh, mix those with water. And then, um, and like a greenhouse setting, we, um, do it at night. Um, but when it's dark, uh, spray it through the, um, take any, any toes on with lots of water and kind of like you're misting plants, that kind of thing. And so they have time, uh, overnight, uh, in, in the dark to wiggle around and plant the thrips and go inside and feed us, feed them that. And, um, then when the sun comes up, the nematodes have real short legs. And so they don't walk very far, very fast. And so they need to give some time and the, uh, there's a lot of moisture on the leaves for them to find the thrips. And then there's another predator or the, um, where the dynamite ones is, is my neat carrot butter. And, uh, they love to eat thrips and spider mites and so on. And so, gee, you can just grow some, any kind of flower that's got nice soft petals and, uh, that'll grow lots of, uh, the Western flower thrips. And then those Western clover thrips will grow lots of my new carrot mug. And, um, uh, so that's a really good strategy for, uh, managing an evecological approach to, to managing the thrips too well. So what would be the specific flowers that you would recommend for somebody? Well, I'm necessarily going to go with Alice. But, but just about any, any flower that has, um, um, uh, nice soft petals. And, uh, then you, it's in a context of a green Hellenist or, uh, some kind of garden or something like that. So you pick a flower that fits in, you know, to your, your, um, your growing situation and then, um, you know, just about anything will do. Then there's a number of, uh, general predators like, uh, lacewing, which is loves to chew on, um, on thrips. And you can put those out in large numbers, you know, pretty economically. And then, uh, there's some, uh, a number of different kinds of ladybugs. We'll feed them on thrips. There's the convergent ladybugs and the ones that you go into the garden center and they've got, you know, little, um, mesh bags of them. And, um, they got, you know, the, the, the convergent ladybug, the standard, uh, red and black, uh, spotted, uh, ladybug, you know, um, it's here today and gone tomorrow, but there's a whole bunch of different, uh, ladybugs. There's five or six different ladybugs that are virtually available and they will all, all, you know, with them, um, both the thrips, it's, um, in by plants. And you sell the other varieties that Regan might deal with? Yeah. And so we grow Landorus, a, uh, little ladybug that, uh, really loves to eat scallop, you know, they'll eat other things. And, um, and, uh, I mean, um, I remember it said we got being, we, um, I don't even eat my steak very much. Oh, right. So, um, the western plow thrips, uh, then grows on the, um, leaves of the plant and then drops to the soil to pupate. And, uh, so on the leaf, you can use this Bacumerus mighty and Blaseus cucumbers for, cucumbers for sure. Um, and they feed on the thrips, the young thrips under the leaf surface. And then there's another predator milk, the, um, uh, Stradivarius elapsed that works in the soil. And so when the thrips drop to the soil to pupate and, um, they're, um, they're available to the soil going at a remote. And so the combination of those two predator mites, one for the leaf and one for the soil, it's kind of like a double one. I mean, so you kind of think, okay, you know, the, the insect, the complete life cycle is egg, larva, pupa, adult. So you think, okay, water for pressure on each of these larger stages. So that the, you know, each one may only give you in 20, 30%, you know, reduction, but then all of them, you get a hundred per se, very close to it. Yeah. Okay. Get it close enough. All right. Right. Wonderful. Wow. Amazing. I'm learning so much. I hope you guys are learning a lot too. So Ron, what's the fourth biggest pest for vegetable gardeners? Um, cucumber. Yeah. Cucumber beetles, the same as squash bugs or different? No squash bugs or bugs are, so they got a, um, feeding, uh, feeding mouth parts that are kind of like a, a, a drink. Do you strut? And I, they, I'll propose an amla or any fruit and vegetable and suck your juice. Um, but the, um, uh, cucumber beetles is, uh, a little, there's striped ones, um, spotted ones, and, um, uh, with some other ones, particularly ones have come. Why'd she have her, but they all tend to have roughly the same kind of life cycle and management. So we just kind of love standing up and go. So, um, the, uh, adults feed on green flowers and, and, uh, uh, eventually, you know, the fruit of apple squash. And, um, they lay their, their likes near the, uh, near the base, uh, one season grass is boring and sometimes in the pastured plants and so on. And so, um, you have can the track for the adults with, um, something that tastes like cucumber, there's this stuff called cricket that tasted it's a really con really high concentration in the root of the buffalo ward. And there's a, um, uh, something I tube sparing, uh, watering, uh, me fitter man, or something like that. And then also in buttermilk and if the, they found, um, uh, squash or board, like, uh, prove that's popular Asian cooking that it's, I mean, this enchanted, a bitter tasting. So, um, this, uh, Cucumber flavoring is in there and that's very attracted them. So you could mix that with some great, some, uh, toxic and or some control star. So, um, historically they've used which is, uh, an extract from, um, a brew of this, uh, micro those spouted within the soil around some, um, rum distilleries in the Caribbean. And so it's a naturally occurring, uh, micro just for a minute and extract it from the broth and such. So it's a natural material and it's available for organic form. And so we can use that. Or, um, I think, uh, more interesting would be one of the insect eating feng shui, the very bossy on, uh, the, um, uh, pleasure. Why? See, we were essence. Oh, no, no, no. He's sorry. I feel near us. You're about to correct me. I'm sure. I don't know yet, but I have no idea. And, um, I didn't know there's bugs. Yeah, it's cool. Um, so you say you can net, you know, mix that, that, um, uh, bitter aromatic bait with, with, um, uh, yeah, one of these fungi that, that eats the insect, right. And then you take that bait and just kind of spread a route, large droplets widely scattered. And so, uh, since it's better, uh, tasting better, smelling things that you heard you, it repels a lot of things. So in other ways, be interested in drops of water. I was, I'm not tracking. And so, um, I will reduce the adult numbers. And since the larvae are feeding lungs, the, uh, roots of growing foreign, sometimes beats and some other things, you can, uh, mix up some nematodes that love to eat grubs, the heterobditis bacteria for, uh, for HP for sharks. And, um, where I mix those with water to kind of use our, uh, watering around those, um, uh, plants. So, um, it's called, uh, and, uh, we're, uh, how do you doubt? Yep. You'll pop your, your, your beats. And if there's little, you know, holes in there, you're going to look at it. That's what it is. And let's see. So then, um, I, I do cover beetles. So anybody who's using growing squash on current courage to the planet, the little strip of alfalfa along the road, you'd be in your garden. You could have a couple of plants in about, and then all as a cucumber beetle will show up there, um, take your least vacuum and work through or, uh, uh, shop back, you know, um, and, and get electricity out there and just back in the cucumber beetles out of that. So trap trap. Yeah. And then, uh, you get to decide with faith. Okay. So you did then try them in with the chickens that are in the ducks. All right. Uh, for yourself without, you know, putting them in the compost pot, if he's enough, you know, typically you'd be, you, you can imagine the options, dump them in some soapy water. Yeah. There's a few rounds of it says there's several options in man. Then we noticed that the, um, new cover of yields liked certainly finances. Why? So I think the, um, what I think for the cucumber beetles, they're very premo, um, you know, desired food is we, uh, bananas. Oh, bananas questions. Yeah. And so we could ban, uh, some blend on squash, you know, even before it's really safe to put it out, you know, as far as your, your lawful, um, you know, last frost date, you know, remember those and it'll sit out here living in Southern California for us. No, you know, what's that? Oh yeah. Yeah. We grew up in Indiana. So, okay. So, um, you put out that as a trap crowd and then you go and either pick them off your vacuums and them off of, of that sort of a trap plant. And then, um, uh, you set your, your other plants out in the field and plant them with green seed. And then you reduce the overwintering population where the first one's at. So pest numbers build up to, you know, as you don't control them cause you're too lazy, you don't do anything and then they just get out of control that it gets significantly more difficult to deal with. So you think about it numerically, like, um, you know, you, you kill, uh, one of the pests early in the season, you know, you're stopping them from reproducing, maybe like, you know, 50 eggs, mature in a couple of weeks, year, month, and, you know, just kind of multiply that through the year. So you kill one pest insect early in the season that may be, you know, worth a million later by around October. And the northern habitat, I know you've got a world. So you get off your butts in the springtime. As soon as you see one bug man, get it. Cause that'll save you a lot of headaches later in the summer. Wow. So Ron, we've got through four so far. And I mean, each kind of like solution to me seems fairly complex to you. It's like the back of your hand, but so the next thing is what's the fifth and final past that you get called about for vegetable gardens and how do you do with it? Yeah. I gotta say this. There's a white fly, white flies. Um, there's a little tiny flies. And, uh, mama lays her egg on the underside of the leaf. And the larval stage is a little, little tiny scale on the underside of the leaf. And, um, it, um, sucks the juice out of the plant and then it makes the plant look kind of fried. Thank you. And so, uh, say, um, so to reduce those, uh, we could just going to spray something, got to get the underside of the plant. So silky water is nice. And then there's some global pathogen, see the fungi that like to eat insects that can mix with water and spray on the underside of the leaves. And that, uh, from a DIY standpoint and, uh, and can be used to recompose extract, you know, and use a combination of, uh, colonizing the plant with beneficial microbes. And, um, there's a number of, uh, general predators that love to eat them. The race one, the ladybirds and one, um, uh, there's a little person at the last day called, um, incursio that, uh, mama lays her egg in the scale on the other side of the layer. And then, uh, that little, that egg hatches and the wasp leaks the scale. And for incursio, uh, the parasitized scale turns black. And so the healthy scale are kind of a fighter. If in a Cree fuller, it's always kind of like black and white. That, uh, we just kind of flip over a couple of leaves and see what proportion as the scale are, are black versus white. And then, you know, um, about when you got something like you're a 50%, um, the parasitized scale showing that you, you probably are done was where it's managing or arresting. So is this the scale or is this white fly? It's a, a little scale to learn of the white fly that are, it's the, with the, um, wire ball or nanostage, uh, the white fly. Oh, the white fly, the scale stage. I didn't know about. Yeah. Ha ha. Yes. That makes sense. Then, yeah, you know, you know, when you got white fly, you take plant, check it a little bit. And they just get everywhere. I get a lot of those. Well, some people, you know, and maybe new to all of a sudden, so just, you know, for monitoring, it's go up to the plate, check, shake it, shake it. And you see these little teeny tiny things flitting about. So there's a, uh, secondary, the second, um, parasitic wasp, uh, before the, the, um, I like going after the white fly scale on underside leaf, let's go. And you've been also get a mix and then you encourage the, uh, in the pair of muskets. And, um, so that, uh, is generally the, the, um, way to manage the, the white fly in your garden. Cool. So are there any like, I just spray water on my white flies. And if I keep doing it kind of like aphids, you know, these are going to go away in many cases. Yep. Yes. Just super simple. Yep. So, so water, the basic, uh, water with, uh, soap watering with beneficial microbes and so on. And, um, you could, you can now make your, your compost more effective or test By taking a little bit of compost, like maybe, um, um, a pint of compost and put them all over these little plastic tubs. Uh, you'd have, you know, like we're a food service type things and then mixing dead butters in it. Ah, that's a good tip. So you need to clean out those, those, um, lamb shades, you know, for the outside lights, you know, where the full, uh, dead bugs or something like that. Or there's, uh, dead bugs, you know, uh, in a corner in the house or something and then mix that with some compost. And, uh, that the skin, uh, insects is made of chitin. Right. And so by feeding the compost with this chitin, you're growing things that are chitinous. Exactly. And they like bacillus chitinosporos and bacillus lageriformes and licheniformes, you know, all those things. But what about adding like insect frass, which is, you know, ground up dead bodies and other things to the, if you can't find in dead insects around your house. Yeah. Did that work too? It has kind of, it's hard to imagine somebody who couldn't find dead insects, Right. I guess there's something. Well, this is a higher volume, these insects. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Last winter fly larvae or whatever. Yeah. So yeah, certainly. The frass is a readily available commercial resource that has, um, um, chitin digesting bacteria in it. Oh, I know what you could use. It's got a couple of good little fly traps like this. Oh. And all the dead flies. And I have so many of those. I'd be rich if for every dollar I had a dead fly in my, these fly traps. So you could use this. Yeah. In the compost. Bingo. Yep. That's an easy way to collect bugs. So we're putting it together, right? Even as we speak. Wow. I'm afraid to say none of this whole episode right here. So you, you hold that in kind of a foolish, you know, foolish room temperature for about two weeks. And then, uh, that compost will be supercharged with the microbes, the, the insect skin. Wow. So then you use that. As the spray. As, as, as the, um, uh, Boiler. Compost the pre compost extract. You mix that with water, strain all the chunky beds and use that water. Does that screen water, uh, to, um, where a spray on the, um, insects and add some molasses and some seaweed and make it more effective and cop that combination. And wow. That's the nugget. So Rod, why don't gardeners teach this stuff that you just told me? Like I never heard of that before. This is what master gardener should be teaching instead of, okay. You see this bug uses pesticides and we're supporting those with our tax dollars. Give me a break. I demand equal time. Well, that's why I got you on the channel. And that's why they're shutting down here. And I mean, we're staying almost after the bell, uh, interviewing you because this is so important and I'm passionate about, you know, the toxin pesticides that are killing people. You know, there's lawsuits in California or other states where people are getting the companies like Monsanto and are getting sued for killing people with that, you know, roundup with the cancer. I mean, probable carcinogen. I don't, I wouldn't say problem. I'd say definite, but I can't say that I'm a lawyer. I don't want to get sued, but all right, Ron. So that was a big nugget. So here's the thing, guys, Ron makes it sound really easy. Hey, that's why you specialize in bad for like over 50 years or whatever. You do simple working with nature, working with nature, but he knows all the different controls. So here's the thing, guys, if you guys didn't pay attention to this episode, it's all right. Just remember that last thing you said it was like the nugget in the whole episode. What if you guys got bug problems, call recon by do because all the staff there, well, they don't know quite as much as fraud, but that definitely will help you out and get you the bugs and the answers you need on how to prevent them. Number one, you know, deal with the past at all their different larval stages, not just the adults that you try to react against. But if you kill the adults, if they've already laid eggs and they hatch the next year, you can have more issues. So there they know all the tips. So Ron, how can somebody reach out to you guys and get help? We're here to help. Our website is Rinconbytober.com. That's R-I-N-C-O-N. And V-I-T-O-V-A, contraction of Vita Oba, live egg from the Latin. Rinconbytober.com. Our 800 number is 800-248-2847. The last four digits spell bugs. All right, we're here to help. Let us know how we can help you. Yeah, and call that for free advice when you got bugs. Don't leave a comment because I ain't gonna answer because I got, I got almost a million followers down on this channel. Call them if you got the bug problems. They'll take care of you organically in the best way possible. You know, there's some brave people and they're here to help. If you guys enjoyed this last episode of the Heirloom Expo, hey, please be sure to give me a big thumbs up. My voice is gone. I can't make any more videos. Be sure also to share this with other people that are still using pesticide, guys, that are not, that are not yet organic so they can learn the best ways to handle the bugs that actually works. Because they wouldn't be in business if it didn't work after 50 years, guys. They'd be put out of business. They'd have bad reviews, but they don't. Okay? Also, be sure to click that subscribe button right down below so you don't miss my new and upcoming episodes. I've come out every five to seven days. You never want to show up or you'd be learning on my YouTube channel. Make sure you click the little bell so you're notified as many videos come out. And finally, be sure to check out past episodes. My past episodes are a wealth of knowledge over 7,800 episodes at this time on this channel. I'll put links down below to the videos I've made in the past. I give you guys a tour of their insectary. And actually, they're really legit because they're actually growing and selling the bugs that they're going to ship you guys, not like some places that just simply resell them, which a lot of places online do that. So listen to this guy. He's got some good info. He's talking to the thought leaders in the industry and in gardening and farming. So good work. Thanks for having me. So with that, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll see you next time. And until then, remember, keep on growing.