My experience is just the opposite. Back in my chem days I would spray for one bug and end up with three others because most sprays kill the good bugs as well as the bad. I introduced green lacewings and stopped spraying and my garden got into perfect balance. I once used so much Miracle Grow one year I got entire huge plants without a single flower. NOT ONE! Now I compost and use natural ferts. After a few years of organic gardening my garden came alive! It is an outstanding garden that I would match up against anyone's. And I feel a lot better about my families health. Win Win for me....

Ruth, you're in zone 5 and in our zone there aren't really that many buggy critters to spray for. Foliage diseases yes, but not critters.

What pests are you concerned about?

Carolyn

I use Daconil as a preventative for early blight and a couple of other foliage diseases. It works really well.

Other than aphids and whiteflies, the insect pests I've seen so far have pretty well been controlled by hand-picking. Soapy water does a good job on the aphids. So I don't use any insecticides.

One rainy year I tried a copper spray against bacterial speck, but it didn't work very well and I don't think I'll bother again. Copper doesn't break down like Daconil does, instead it builds up in the soil with every application and it's poisonous to worms and other beneficial organisms. I don't care for that idea at all.

I haven't had as many pests growing tomatoes as I have growing lettuce. It's funny -- I'm in a dense suburban area of southern California, not that far from central L.A., and I am plagued with just about everything. Buffalo Treehoppers? Jeez, I never heard of such a thing, but, hey, I got them.

Sevrin seems to be good enough for the really nasty little villains. My raspberries last year were nearly destroyed by green apple leaf-rollers. The BTK hardly put a dent in them. Sevrin finally put an end to that nonsense. But it came with a certain sense of defeat. Having to resort to weapons of mass destruction (as a last resort) suggests incompetence.

Semi-Organic is the WAY.

What you do is plant your tomatoes in long rows with the plants spaced about 3 - 4 feet apart. Every third or fourth spot, plant a real dog ... like Yellow Brandywine, say. You know, a plant that ain't worth growin' in the first place. If you've been growin' heirlooms, I'm sure you got one that'll fit this duty.

Then during bug season, go down the rows and shake each plant real vigorously to upset the bugs like white flies and those nasty little yellow and black spotted critters that like cukes and tomatoes. Keep alternately shakin' all the tomato plants EXCEPT the Yellow Brandywine ... or whichever dog heirloom you've chosen as the "host" plant.

Let the bugs all light on the dog "host" plant and spray the livin' beejeebers outta them.

This method doesn't work for hornworms ... but unless you got a real heavy infestation of hornworms, your tomato plants should be able to outgrow any damage they inflict. If not, you should hand pick'm and feed'm to Fido as a little treat. He'll love'm

GGH

It probably was more foliage disease as you suggest..

I so want to keep my garden as organic as possible as i have three beautiful young grandchildren who garden with me and are CONSTANTLY grabbing cherry tomatoes and popping them in their mouths..my concerrn is that if i spray with ANYTHING then i have to be overly cautious with this garden that they love to go in as much as i do..

I finally enrolled myself in a master gardening program that i will begin soon so that i can learn more about what it is i need to correct so that i can stay my path organically as i so want.

ruth

Ruth,
One mistake people make in growing organically is, you don't use anything on the plants and let them just grow. In fact, organic growing is a lot more work, but it's also a systematic way of gardening. Instead, the formula is sometimes in a multi-step process, not in a bottle of chemicals.
Also, give it more than one shot. It'll come to you.
You'll be glad you did.
Tom

I would add to oregon-veg's comment in that the plants that are most attacked by insects are the most stressed, unhappy plants. THeir tissues contain more unused nitrogen and are the most nutritious to the predators.

Poisoning the insects or disease organisms is at best temporary, and often not even worth it if your crop is not doing well for lack of available nutrients.

Where i live, I'd never need to garden, there are a zillion Amish gardeners with "coffee can" roadside stands.
For those who live elsewhere, that is a a pile of gorgeous produce, listed prices, and a coffee can with a slit in the lid, and no one in sight.

Unfortunately, I travel daily up and down the roads where the gardens are, and have lived next door to Amish gardeners, and I can tell you, unequivocally, these folks like to poison things...many are in to composting, cover crops, and lots of organic matter, but any sign of a bug, i.e. a potato beetle, gets an extreme reaction.

Myself, I'd NEVER poison for potato beetles, IF i get them, and I rarely do because I plant early and mulch with straw to keep them cool, by the time the bugs show up, the tubers are already doing fine. The vines die anyway, and I like my baked potato without poison, thanks.

My neighbors plant their taters early, but keep them hoe'd so cleanly that their roots get too warm, which stresses them and draws the bugs.

I'm not convinced that a small infestation even affects yields, but every plant in those Amish gardens get covered with Sevin dust.

I'll pass, thanks.

But when it comes to the inevitable tomato blights...it makes sense to put down mulch to keep spores from splashing up from the soil, to pick resistant varieties, to make your soil as healthy as possible and feed your plants however you determiine works best for you.

But spraying for ubiquitous tomato diseases for me defeats the whole purpose of growing veggies that i know are free of poisons.

I know even the hardiest resistant hybrid is still gonna be an ugly dead vine at the end of the season, so i do my planning and planting accordingly.

I'm trying to grow organically myself and one of my tomatoes has black spots on the main stem and the leaves are dying from the outside towards the inside. does anybody know what this is and how I can stop it or keep the other plants from getting it? I planted marigolds and basil by the tomatoes, cause I read it in a book that would help them. It's kinda stressful!!

Organic is one of those things that doesn't work "half-way". I haven't used any synthetic pesicides for 20 years (OK, I use Round up on the poison ivy - but I'm real careful about that)

The first few years can be difficult. But you get a yard&garden that has lots of beneficial insect predators. I see ladybugs and their nyphs all around my yard. I have praying mantises. I see little unidentified harmless predator wasps and insects all over the place. I even have honeybees (from where I don't know).

The plants we want don't thrive in a vaccuum. I have a wide variety of locally natural plants growing. They support predatory insects as well as butterflies. I have places for dragonflies. I have toad abodes... :)

I even saw a black snake in the flowerbed a few days ago. And that means fewer rodents (mice and voles).

Organic isn't just some hippie philosophy; it is simply an easier way to grow things safely without a lot of work. Letting nature work FOR you rather than against you.

You grow the soil, not the plants, and the plants will grow themselves with help from the insect predators and the anti-disease compost.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I've been organic for many years now and what a difference it makes. For me it's the best way....

As stated, there is a difference between not spraying anything and "organic".

I like the concept of "organic" but I think the average Joe is confused or mislead on the definition.

In a perfect world we could all live on "organic" produce. Unfortunately, in todayÂs demanding fast paced society it's not going to happen unless lots of other things change.

I think a balance is best and letÂs face it; technology has enabled 1 farmer to feed thousands of people. We have evolved to this point and IÂm sure people would not want to go back to the great potato famine that a few semi loads of fungicide would have prevented.

Timmy well said. Although this basic concept has been covered in different threads under different names and the same opinions gave each time it boils down to prudent use of whatever you use. Like I've stated before I'm probably 95% or more organic but don't hesitate to pull out the big guns every few years if that is what will save my crops. It is a personal decision each of us has to make. And what works for one won't work here in my garden. Just my observations after 40 plus years of gardening. Jay

Ruth,

I didn't take the time to read all of the above posts, so forgive me if this is a repeat opinion, but... If I understand correctly, you formally used chemicals then switched to organic??

If so, I wouldn't expect that your first year transition to organic would produce wonderful results. The idea behind organic is to work with the natural environment. If you've been using sprays and fertilizers for years then suddenly quit, I would think that your soil would be in shock. I think it will take at least 3 years of using organic methods to see your soil health and plant production come back to the level you're used to seeing.

Just my 2 Cents...

Lisa

Organic is a lot more work than chemical--I've been organic since 1992. In addition to making a ton of compost every year and constantly improving my soil, I make aerated compost tea to strengthen the plant against disease. I spray with a diluted baking soda solution to protect against foliar disease. I run a fan in the greenhouse to keep air circulating to ward off foliar disease. I put aluminum foil collars on my plants to ward off cutworms. I mulch with newspaper and grass clippings to protect against diseases caused by splash up from the soil.

This is a lot more work than relying on chemical fertilizer and chemical fungicides. I kinda view it as a much greater challenge with no artificial advantage to the gardener.

For those that are Organic growers:

Are any of you Certified?

Do you only buy/start/plant Organic seeds?

Korney

I am a backyard gardener. I have no reason to be certified.

Certifiable, perhaps.
Mulch mulch Mulch.
Yes, to organic seeds, from my orgainic plants, in organic potting soil, ect.
Keep soils from splashing those leaves- Mulch. Trelis, Stakes C.. cages whatever works. Compost tea-organic if you got it. Most of all, ENJOY, DON'T SWEAT IT.

Organic seeds are a big BS as far as I am concerned. Who really cares what growing methods were used at the nursery that produced the seeds? That has nothing to do with my garden and what grows in it. All I care is do the seeds germinate, and are the seeds genetically uniform and true to the cultivar that I purchased? They could grow the parent seed stock in vats of Miracle Gro lit up by gamma rays for all I care.

Some non organic seeds are treated with fungicides that can interfere with Mycorrhizal Fungi formation that many organic gardeners inoculate the plantings with.
Others purchase organic seeds to reward organic seed growers which encourages more organic seed producers which does much more to help the environment than one Gardner using organic methods.
I tend to purchase organic seeds when I can but many varieties are not available from organic seed producers. Of course traded seeds are probably the best solution.
And yes I like the option of using a Mycorrhizal Fungi inoculant from time to time.

This is my 7th year of growing organically, and I'll never go back. Every year, my soil gets healthier, which means healthier, more disease-free plants and very few insect problems. My insect control consists of spraying with either neem oil or pyrethrin-based products, but even then I probably do it 2 or 3 times per season.

My experience tells me that if you spend the majority of your efforts building your soil for the first few years, that's at least 2/3 of the overall battle. I finally had my first soil test done this year just to find out that nearly in every aspect my numbers were excellent.

Oh, and I don't sacrifice yield, taste, or appearance by growing organically either. My plants consistently outproduce anybody I know, and in some years (last year in particular) tomato plants here in S.E. Pennsylvania were dropping like flies and many lost all their plants and crops. Mine were affected somewhat, but I still picked hundreds of beauties.

Don't give up on organic. Nature doesn't need synthetic sprays and fertilizers. When people ask me my secrets to growing such great crops, I tell them:

1) Build your soil
2) Build your soil
3) Build your soil

I may not tip my hand to EVERYTHING else, but if you have healthy soil and a decent location I think it's about impossible to NOT get good results.

Korney19 - I have been generally organic since the early 80's. My yard and garden are not certified organic, but I suspect it could be. I've just never bothered to find out.

I don't buy organic seeds. I'm certainly not against organic seeds, but I don't think the seeds are a problem (though I note bryanccfshr's comment about fungicides with some interest).

I do save Brandywine tomato seeds, though, and I know that they are organic. This year, I will be saving Cherokee Purple, Caspian Pink, and Prudens Purple as well. I think my bell peppers, beans, cukes, etc are hybrids, so I can't save those I guess.

I do very little spraying of any sort. I'm not against organic sprays and dusts, it's just that I seldom need to. My neighborhood has almost no gardens, so I don't get many pests. I will have to do some spraying on the apples though, or I'll never get any good fruit. I had 3 dwarf apple trees that got knocked over by a hurricane some years ago and I never got much from them. The replacements are just coming to maturity, so I am looking into organic sprays for apples.

I compost everything I can, but it is nowhere near enough material. This year I bought 2 cubic yards of locally produced bulk compost. I think that stuff is organically safe (I've seen the steaming hot piles as it is being produced). At least I didn't get any weed seeds from a test pot, and some test veggie seeds grew well in it.

I'm not as concerned about organic in flowerbeds and lawns as I am in the edible gardens. So if I have poison ivy or something really troubling in the flowers or lawn, I will use careful limited applications there.

Regarding the question about being certified organic.....

I have no intention of going through that hassle. Once the government got involved, I knew it would be too much trouble. I do this for fun, and just the smallest amount of profit (what's that?) from selling produce at a local farmers market.

On the rare occasion when somebody asks me if I'm certified organic, I just say with a smile that I certify I'm organic. It never goes any further than that.