Interesting article! I've used milk before as a spray on my roses to effectively rid them of powdery mildew - has to be done in the morning so that the moisture doesn't sit overnight on the leaves. Makes sense that molasses would work on a compost pile - will have to try that!

Hmmm. I wonder if milk and molasses would work on keep squash bugs at bay. I have employed (planted) every old wives tale I could find in my "squash neighborhood," including jicama, catnip, radishes, dill and nasturtium. I'm about to add borage too. I was decimated last year but partly because I went to vacation for two weeks so wasn't home to protect my pretty plants.

So the radish idea, planting radish seeds around the squash vine, didn't work? I had hopes for that one.

Its too soon to tell about the radishes; I did plant them underneath this season. I won't know until May or June-ish when the little buggers start showing themselves. It is my fervent hope that I won't see any at all :-)

Whenever I've used milk in the garden, I got ants galore. Same for egg shells. How about your experience with molasses? Seems like it could attract other bugs.

My experience with molasses is in general is less bugs. I used a couple of sow thistles as test plants that were next to each other. The on that wasn't sprayed had hundreds of aphids, the one that was sprayed 2x a week for 3 weeks was bigger, less powdery mildew, only a few winged aphids and no youngsters. And about double the blooms.

So I have started using it on my tomatoes and no aphids so far, just a few winged ones here and there.