Pests and Parasites

I'm going to share two very reliable pesticides, that as far as I can tell do not harm the pollinators, but care must be taken.  First, I use Diatomaceous Earth as a natural pesticide against the hard shelled insects.  I do take care, not to dust the blooms, though.  I've searched and read both warning and safety comments regarding honey bees and DE, so I avoid dusting the blooms.

The other pesticide I use, first came about by accident.  I had planned to make my own Tabasco sauce last year, but wasn't real sure about it, so I just bought a couple of bedding plants at a local nursery.  As it turns out, they were mislabeled.  I thought the peppers seemed an odd shape compared to the pictures on Tabasco sauce bottles, but I figured, "What did I know?"  So, I put a few of those almost round, with a point, red peppers in the blender with some water.  When I removed the blender lid, my eyes began to water.  I knew this was not Tabasco sauce in the making.

I had thought they looked like habaneros, and sure enough, a quick Google search showed images of habaneros that looked exactly like the hundreds of peppers that were growing in my garden.  Well now, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with these peppers, but I knew I had no intention of eating them.  Last year was a particularly difficult year due to drought.  It seems the only thing really thriving were the grasshoppers, and they were making short work of my garden, when I noticed something.  The habanero plants were beautiful!  There were no leaves missing, no hoppers jumping!

That's when it occurred to me, to at least try it.  So, the concoction in the blender went into a spray bottle and out to the garden.  It didn't take long for the grasshoppers to move on.  Now, I make a point of raising one habanero plant on my deck.  It keeps the pests from the other plants and produces enough peppers to make my pesticide!