Natural Pesticides I'm Trying!

As you can see below, the pole bean plants are suffering from some kind of pest or bacteria. I can't see any insects or signs of them on the bean plants and they seem to be coming from within the plant. A local botanist called it "mosaic," which causes the leaves of the plants to have an irregular shape and the yellow-greenish coloring you can see in my photo. What worries me is that infected plants are known to produce half or even less beans than non-infected plants.

The fact that the garden has a pest problem already is not surprising, due to the lack of diversity in this area--the school is located in the midst of lots of houses which grow only corn and beans on their property. After that interrim of corn/beans, there is alot of development and paving of everything.

My first answer to the problem of pests is to have as diverse of an ecosystem as possible an to grow naturally repelling plants such as garlic, chili and onions...but not everything grows as fast as beans (although the garlic has really taken off!) and so far, there aren't any other meal options for the insects at the school. At my house, I'm growing native grasses, weeds and other plants (like amaranth, yucca, llanten, consuelda and chipilin) to deter the insects but they aren't strong enough to put on school grounds yet. Mother Earth magazine says that Marigolds are the best deterrent for insects that effect beans and I have several of those coming up right now. But in the meantime, I'm hoping that one of these homemade and/or local suggested concoctions works...

I'm starting with one that is the easiest to make (at least around my house...I live with two heavy smoker/drinkers). It's called "Hillbilly's Breath," and was suggested to me about a year ago by a close friend. It consists of used cigarette butts, some beer, crushed garlic and chili powder. I put it in a spray bottle and sprayed the plants. We'll see how it works.

The locals around here did suggest using tobacco derivitives as a spray, apparently nicotine is poisonous to many types of insects. Also, Chrysanthemum is supposed to be similar to Marigolds and repel insects with the naturally occuring chemical pyrethum (a base for many synthetic, harmful pesticides with chlorine and phosphorous and other chems added). I'm not sure where I can find Chrysanthemum seeds around here, but I'm looking into seed donations from ECHO (oddly, a Christian-environmental group).

Other people suggested that I pound several types of local plants that have strong smells and then mix with a little bit of water and spray those on infected plants. I am kind of excited by my new trial and error experiments.

The following is a set of other common natural pest deterrents for gardens or homes in general (new ways to USE your plants!):

The first thing to do is remove the infected leaves and plants and dispose of them far from the garden site...they're only attracting insects at this point. Prune the plant all the way to the stem, leaving the stub invites the bug inside the plant.

Another piece of info I just read that I didn't previously know was that wet foliage attracts the most bugs. Best to water early so it dries during the day or to invest in a drip-irrigation system which will avoid wetting the foliage all together. I would love to have someone help me build this, but I don't see it happening in the next few days...so I'm just gonna get even closer to the ground and avoid the leaves of all my plants.

To keep ants/cockroaches/mites out, place cucumber peels at their place of entry. Most ants have an aversion to cucumber. If that doesn't work, crush cloves and mint and spray along their path. Also, citrus oil, cayenne pepper, cinnamon or coffee grinds work. Cataria or catnip can also be made into a more effective spray than DEET (for mosquitos).

Any questions, I'd be happy to research them for you! Just let me know!