Stop Worms and Caterpillars FAST With This Organic Spray!

Worms and caterpillars are destroying my garden. This means war. On today's video, I'm going to show you what to spray on your plants to stop worms and caterpillars. Then I'm going to show you when and how to spray it. This organic spray is safe to spray on all of your warm weather crops including tomatoes, peppers, squashes, cucumbers, and corn, your cool season crops like brassicas and leafy greens, and fruit trees and their fruits. Last week my plants were perfect. Then we got four days of heavy rain and seemingly overnight my garden has been decimated by worms and caterpillars. Whether you're dealing with tomato hornworms, cabbage worms, vine borers, or caterpillars, this safe and effective organic spray is the one they hate and will stop the problem. And stay tuned until the end of the video where I will show you how to use this spray safely to minimize harm to beneficial insects in your garden. I'll also place direct links down in the video description to the spray concentrates for your convenience. My favorite organic insecticide to use in my garden by far is spinosad, and one of my favorite properties of this is that it is not a contact killer. It specifically targets worms, caterpillars, and the adult moths, as well as beetles, leaf miners, aphids, thrips, ants, spider mites, and other biting, munching, and sap-sucking insects. Correctly, it targets the bad insects and minimizes harm to beneficial insects. Spinacid is a natural bacteria that makes insects sick when they eat it. For spinacid to be effective, you must apply it at sunset during dry weather. Then the spinacid dries on the leaves of the plants, the insects continue to consume the leaves, and upon ingestion, they die in about one to two days. Because of this, spinacid specifically targets the Bad insects that eat the leaves, fruit, and sap of our plants, while not generally harming most of the carnivorous beneficial insects because those insects don't eat our plants. The thing that makes worms and caterpillars so destructive is how they seemingly come out of nowhere and virtually wipe out our entire crop. Practically overnight, you can have a perfect bed of cabbage, broccoli, corn, tomatoes, and squash one day, wake up and find holes everywhere in the leaves the next, and then the crop can be completely ruined in two to three days. When we find the first signs of damage, we must act fast. Four days ago, there was no worm damage in sight on my tomatoes. Then, we got four days of rain, and during that stormy pattern, there was a hornworm explosion. I did my best to control the problem. by manually removing as many hornworms as possible because you can't spray during the rain or it'll just wash off. I went from plant to plant and pulled off every worm I could find, but they are masters of disguise and they just kept hatching and reproducing. The only way to stop them is to break the reproductive cycle by spraying the plants. Well, we finally have some dry weather and the sun is setting, so I'm taking this opportunity to stop this problem for good. Spinacid concentrate should be mixed in water and not combined with any other concentrates because it is a natural bacteria product. Always read the instructions on the product you are buying for proper dosage recommendations. This particular brand recommends mixing it in water at a rate of Of one quarter cup per. So, now that the sun has set completely and temperatures have cooled down quite a bit, we are going to spray all of our affected plants. And the key when spraying our affected plants is to get very good coverage. We want to spray them to the point where they are dripping, particularly the plants that actually have visible worm damage because that means that they are in here somewhere. And because we are using spinosad and it is relatively broad spectrum, This is also going to help fight against other sap-sucking, damaging bugs, like stink bugs, leaf-footed bugs, and other annoying beetles that plague my tomato garden at this time of the year. So we really want to make sure... That we get very, very good coverage. And one of the things that is highly beneficial is that we use a battery backpack sprayer. Because battery backpack sprayers get much, much better range than manual pump sprayers. You could use a manual pump sprayer if you wish. Look at that right there. There's an annoying, awful worm. The problem I have is my tomato plants are 12 feet tall right now. And it's really hard to get those affected areas. It would be very difficult with a manual sprayer. But with a battery backpack sprayer, because of the enhanced range, I can crank the sucker up and I can get incredible coverage. Almost too good of coverage and you'll use your spray too fast. And I also want to get my newer tomato plants. These are new determinate tomatoes that I want for fall gardening. They're early determinate varieties that I hope will provide fruit for me come October. Now we will get the plants from this angle as well. Now remember, spinosad works by ingestion. The worms and caterpillars have to eat the leaves that are coated with the spray, and the spray has fully dried. on the leaves. So if you're spraying at 7, 7 30 like I am and you come outside tomorrow morning at 9 00 a.m and you notice that there is additional damage to your plants or that there are still worms and caterpillars alive, do not freak out. Do not fret. That is part of the process. They have to eat the leaves in order for this to be effective. So you actually want to see a little bit more damage. You want to see the worms and caterpillars eating more of the leaves. It will take about two days for them to die, one to two days after ingestion. So the whole process of spraying and then having them eat the leaves and dying usually takes about three days. So today is a Monday. I would expect the caterpillars to really be mostly gone by Thursday. And also keep in mind that this only works for the current generation of caterpillars that are actively eating your plants as we speak. So if we kill off the current generation of caterpillars, and there are more worms and caterpillar eggs hiding out, well they will hatch and then they will come to life and take over. So... You may have to reapply the spray in seven days to kill off the future generation, and then you may have to repeat the process one more time. So usually most people have to do this three times. One on day zero, one on day seven, and then one on day 14. And then after about three treatments, that should kill off the current generation of caterpillars, and then the next generation, which will stop the egg-laying process. And then the worm and caterpillar menace should largely be taken care of. And with a little bit of the spray I have left over, I'm going to spray some of my new fall peppers. And eggplants, because it looks like they're getting a little bit of damage from some kind of bugs, like thrips or something, up top. And this will help knock them out. They can be a real problem with your pepper plants. So, we're going to completely cover them. And I'm also going to spray some of my new cucumbers and my brand new baby bush butternut squash. Looks like I actually have a butternut squash there. Spray off the tops of my potatoes. Spray some of the brand new cucumbers that are just starting to germinate, as well as this more advanced cucumber plant. And then I'm going to spray my apples. Unfortunately, my once beautiful apples have been annihilated by pests, and I haven't been able to spray them because it's been raining every single day for the last six weeks. It has been a horrible July into August. We had a super dry June. And then the weather, well it always seems to break even, and it made up by one of the wettest July and Augusts I've ever experienced here. And last but not least, the peppers and the squash in my side garden. This bad boy right here is a Zucchino rampicante. Look how beautiful that is. Make sure to get the undersides of the leaves because that is usually where the pests hide And that is where they will suck the sap out of the leaves. So here we are the very next day. It's only been 18 hours since I've sprayed my tomatoes, and I wanted to see if I could find any suffering or dying tomato hornworms. And this goes to show you just how incredibly powerful this organic insecticide is. That tomato hornworm right there is burnt to a crisp. That is what happens when they eat the spinosad. They start suffering. They start shriveling and drying up. So that guy right there Clearly ate the spinosad, ingested it, and it's dead already, and it's going to continue to desiccate and dry up and be burnt to a crisp. And look at this, this is even more amazing. I'm searching through all my plants and I found another tomato hornworm. Look, this one is actively dying, clearly it is poisoned from eating the spinosad. So this should show you beyond a shadow of a doubt. Just how potent and amazing this organic insecticide is. It hasn't even been a full day and they are actively dying, even the big mature hornworms. That guy will be a goner soon. So if you've ever questioned the effectiveness of organic insecticides and you think harsh chemicals are the only way to go, let this video put your mind at ease. Organic insecticides can be incredibly powerful. And that is when and how to use spinosad in our garden. But what about the safety of using spinosad? Some gardeners are reluctant to use even organic insecticides in their garden because of potential harm to beneficial insects. Well, while I share that concern, a worm or caterpillar outbreak can destroy an entire year's worth of work in a matter of days. And when that happens, something simply must be done. The reason why I am comfortable using spinosad in my garden is It has to dry on the leaves, then be eaten by the bad bugs. Beneficial insects do not eat the leaves of our plants. They are either carnivorous or they go after the pollen in flowers. So for that reason, spinosad is very effective at targeting the insects that explicitly do damage to our plants. Now, it's very important that I do not sugarcoat anything, and I'd be completely honest with you before you start using any product like this in your garden. It is true that even when using something organic like spinosad, there could be some fallout to beneficial insects. For example, if we were to spray a worm directly with spinosad, and then a beneficial insect promptly eats that worm, well, it could harm that carnivorous insect. Also, if our flowers get It's saturated with... And a pollinator consumes that pollen, it also could be harmful. However, we can mitigate these problems by waiting until sunset to spray the spinosad. Beneficial insects are generally diurnal and leave our gardens at sunset. Also, flowers usually close at night. So, by spraying our plants at sunset, we are spraying when most of the beneficial insects are absent and the flowers are closed. Also, We're human beings. We can also try and avoid spraying the flowers directly as well. Doing this protects the carnivorous insects and pollinators, which mostly won't return until morning. Meanwhile, the bad bugs, well, they'll have been eating the coated leaves all night, making themselves sick. Also, keep in mind if you're spraying leafy greens and brassicas, well, those aren't flowering fruiting plants, so we don't even have to worry about harm to pollinators when it comes to those leafy greens, unless you let them go to seed. But if you let them go to seed, well, you don't care about insect pests because they're past their prime anyway. So there's no reason to spray something you've let go to seed. So if you are concerned about harm to beneficial insects and you want the least amount of risk possible and the only problem in your garden are worms and caterpillars, instead of using spinosad concentrate, you can use BT concentrate as an alternative. BT is a very narrow spectrum insecticide, and it's strictly toxic to worms and caterpillars. So beneficial insects generally won't be harmed. So if you were to cover the pollen of flowers in BT, it's not effective on bees, so you don't have to worry about that. BT is probably the safest concentrate out there for that reason. However, here where I live on the southeastern coast of North Carolina, I have serious problems with beetles, leaf miners, aphids, moths, thrips, ants, spider mites, and other biting, munching, and sap-sucking insects. And I need the broad-spectrum protection that spinosad provides. Insect pressure here in the coastal Carolinas is on a whole other level. Also another reason why I love using spinosad is it is one of the few organic insecticides that actually has some staying power. Most organic sprays just they're immediately beneficial but then they fade, they break down rapidly. However spinosad can remain effective for up to three to seven days. It does rapidly degrade with heat and light so in the middle of summer when it's When it's super hot, it's effective for more like two to three days in the peak summer heat. And of course, rainy weather will wash it off. So if it rains a lot, It's not going to be protecting your plants anymore, but with dry weather, the fact that it doesn't immediately wear off a few hours after spraying is very helpful, and if you need protection for your brassicas in the fall or the winter or early spring when it's cooler, well, its potency will last longer during that time of year, so it's amazing to use on your cold, hardy brassicas and leafy greens, plus you don't have to worry about them affecting pollinators because they are not a flowering, fruiting plant. So, choose what you want based on your needs and the time of year and how careful you want to be, but regardless, I'll place links to both Spinosad and BT Concentrate down in the video description. The point is, with responsible use and proper timing, both can be very, very safe. And that right there is the organic insecticide that worms and caterpillars hate. If you spray this in your garden, it will get rid of the worms and caterpillars. It may take two or three applications, so you kill off the future generation that will hatch behind them, but it will fix the problem. And it's good on not just your warm weather crops, but your fruit trees and your cool season crops. And if you choose spinosad, it gives you protection of a whole host of other pests as well. So, everybody, I hope you enjoyed this video and found it helpful. helpful. If you did, please make sure to hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, and please ring the notification bell so you're notified when I release more videos like these. I place direct links to all of the products that I featured in this video down in the video description, like Spinosad, BT, the sprayer, and other things I use for insect pest protection, for everything else I use in real life in my yard and garden that is linked in my Amazon storefront in the video description. And while you're down there, check out my website, themillennialgardener.com For all things gardening and custom home design merch, If you want to support my channel, thank you all so much for watching. And I hope to see all of you again on the next video. Oh, yeah Do you want to play with your unicorn? You want to go play with the unicorn? Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Here we go. We're going to go now that it's finally done. Weaning ready and going crazy. What are you going to do about it now? Mr. Noser. Dale, can you drop? Dale, can you drop it? I'm trying. Very good, Dale. Ready? And ice catch, buddy. You still got it. My boy. Get that unicorn. Get it, get it, get it. It makes me so happy to see him like this.