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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Natural pest control

I think this is a Tiger Beetle or maybe a Searcher Beetle, it is a good bug that eats bad bugs.
I found it out in one of the pastures today it was running in a open place in the grass and its iridescent spots caught my eye. One way I attract these good beetles is by leaving wild places around our vegetable gardens. By doing this there is no need for pesticides even the so called "organic/natural" ones such as Pyrethrum. It is the most widely used "natural" pesticide and is derived from the chrysanthemum plant. There is another one called Organocide and is a mixture of 5% Sesame oil, 92% fish oil, and emulsifiers 3%. These sound sort of natural, what's wrong with them? There all from plants and animals. Well lets look at the chrysanthemum plant where was it grown? Were rain forests cut down, or some other ecosystem destroyed in order to plant a mono-crop of chrysanthemums to meet the world's demand for Pyrethrum? What about the Sesame oil? Was the Sesame grown sustainably? Or was it sprayed with Pyrethrum to kill the bad bugs! What about the fish oil? Fish certainly grow naturaly right? Well sadly maybe not these days. As the world's demand for fish goes up and there is no longer enough fish for every one in the ocean and lakes. We are starting to see more fish raised on fish farms. And the fish are eating a mostly corn (maize) diet. Fish eating corn? Yes they are breeding fish that can grow on corn more than likely GMO. Also the fish are fed antibiotics to keep them "healthy". So if you don't Want to support all this non earth friendly stuff, but still think you "need" to use something like Organocide. Why don't I make my own? Easy, just find some very Eco friendly Seseme oil and fish oil at the local health food store. What would be wrong with this? Nothing, you could eat it, its all food grade. But wait why do you think you "need" to spray this on your plants? Oh I have this little mite sucking the juice out of some of my plants and I read this will kill them. Well mites are related to spiders and so you may be killing them too. The spiders eat a lot of bad bugs and maybe mites too. So don't spray and let the good bugs kill the bad.

7 comments:

Hannah said...

GREAT post!
It's sad that hardly any one realizes that God made every dear bug for a reason.
I'm proud to have a brother like you!
~Hannah

Anonymous said...

THE HORRIBLE COST
By RedHen


They told me they were safe,

The pesticides, the herbicides, the biocides
They told me not to worry
What's your hurry?
We use them all
In schools, and malls
On smalls and talls
Day care's and nursing homes too?
All true.

They told me "EPA Approved"
To drill into our home
To spray our yard
To kill the pests (the pets)
That used to bug us, that used to love us

Now no living thing disturbs our sleep
Except the cough, the sneeze, the wheeze
"Lucky to be alive"
We are being told
(At least for now)

Our life forever changed,
Rearranged
Our heads untroubled by the carpenter ants,
Poisons, new, improved
These people-cides

Used for genocide, a Holocaust ago
Born in the Camps, these neurotoxins
Now deodorized to deceive
What you might perceive
Easier to breathe the fumes
That seal your doom
Our brains are now oblivious
To the obvious
Our muscles twitch, our memories fail
Concentration, concentrate, conc...

They told me they were safe,
These brain poisons
They told me they were safe
These pet poisons
They told me they were safe,
These people poisons
These terrible toxins

just thought you might like this poem.

David said...

I really like this poem did you write it?
It brings to mind our bat bug situation. when we moved to a 100 year old farm house from a 10 year old log house we were not familiar with bats living in the attic and the bugs that coexisted with them. A bat bug is very similar to a bed bug the difference is that one likes bat blood the other likes human blood. Well the bats moved out to the barn for the summer and the bugs got hungry so down they came from the attic and into the bedrooms to suck human blood at night! So this is how we found out about bat bugs. The first thing we thought was how do we kill them. We talked to an exterminator and he gave us some sticky traps to monitor them. We asked the previous home owners and they said they did not know about the bat bugs but said there was a lot of other bugs and wasps since it was an old house. And said what they did about it was to let off a bug bomb and go on a vacation for a few days. We found out more about the bat bugs on the web and found they have natural enemies. One is the pseudoscorpion, or false scorpion. the other is an assassin bug. we have both of these bug I just found a pseudoscorpion the other day in my bedroom. So we decided to leave it up to the good bugs and let things come into their proper balance the way God made thing to work.
~David

Anonymous said...

No, I did not write the poem. It is just one that I like!
I have had some experiences with bat bugs in my life time too. Like you, my father did not have an exterminator get rid of them either. . . and they eventually went away.
Wishing you a happy, and peaceful Earth Day!

David said...

I found out who anonymous is it was Hannah just pulling her brother's leg! :-)
~David

Cora Beth said...

You mean sweet Hannah would do such a thing as that to her brother? :)

That's interesting about the "Bat bugs"! I've never heard of them, although we had bats on the outside of the house we lived in many years ago. We have a few bats around here too (Andrew found one in a pant-leg once while taking clothes off the wash-line!), but I don't believe we have bat bugs around--thankfully. :)

David said...

Yes it is very like my sister to do this. I don't see no harm jest a little blog prank! Like the bats we all have a good and bad sides! 8>)