Organic Pesticides - 100% ORGANIC NEEM OIL RESULTS

Organic pesticides, a topic VERY close to my heart.

CHEMICAL PESTICIDES ARE TOXIC TO HUMANS, our food which it permeates, our water supply, our dirt, and everything in our environment, not just pests. Just remember the exact translation of the word: PEST = an animal or plant detrimental to humans or human concerns, CIDE = originates from the Latin word caedere meaning to kill.

In one of my earlier posts, I had mentioned that I would post the results of my Organic Neem Oil test on my radishes. To make my organic and natural pesticide, I just bought 100% neem oil (oil from the Neem Tree), and diluted it with water in a spray bottle. Because the oil turns to a solid on cold days, I heat up the water a little so that it goes on well. I always to a spot test first and wait a few days to make sure the oil itself does not kill the plant. The radishes exhibited zero negative reaction to it, so I started spraying it on them about 6 weeks ago.

From the beginning, I noticed that my radishes were being munched by someone out in the garden. Noticing damage early on is important for not only the health of the plant, but the quantity and most importantly, quality of your yield. The healthier your plants are, the more they will produce.

NO Neem oil

100% organic Neem oil applied

I was willing to sacrifice one entire row of my radish crop to the pests to show all of you the results of Neem Oil, and the results were very, very interesting. It just goes to show you that NON-CHEMICAL, organic alternatives really do work. Keep in mind, this is not ROUND-UP, so you will still see a few holes in my plants, but hey, at least tonight when I am eating my salad, I can chop off the radish tops, or in other cases, eat around a few holes, instead of eating ROUND-UP.

Up close - WITHOUT Neem

Up Close - WITH  NEEM

My hero, Rachel Carson, the lady that wrote the book 'Silent Spring' because she was the first who recognized the correlation between pesticides, and toxicity to life. In short, she realized that after a little 'spring' in her neighborhood was sprayed with pesticides the week prior, it turned silent, when life had flourished just the week before. She was a pioneer in what we now call the 'environmental movement.'

When chemical pesticides are used, everything around it becomes contaminated. Most man made chemical pesticides, like Monsanto's Round-up, anything DOW Chemical makes (AGENT ORANGE), and the now banned DDT are neurotoxins, which disrupt the neurotransmitters in our brains, causing everything from mental or emotional changes, vision loss, weakness, numbness in the arms and legs, to sexual impairment.

DDT, now banned in the US

Why would you put chemicals on your FOOD that have to be labeled toxic, or dangerous, or hazardious, or you have to wear something like this to apply it to your food supply? Almost all food grown in America that is not organically grown, is grown this way. So if you are going to Safway, or Lucky later today, chances are, you are picking up some chemically contaminated food.

MONSANTO pesticides being prepared for large scale field application

Why is the EPA allowing this? The representatives who voted in favor of toxic pesticides being sprayed all over our national food supply, must make enough money to shop at whole foods every day, probably from all those 'handouts', and 'back scratches' that they got from large chemical companies, for voting in their favor.

 Hazardous chemicals, to everything and everyone, not just bugs

AGENT ORANGE human side effects - thanks DOW CHEMICAL

 Lets not forget what happened in Vietnam, DOW still will not take the responsibility. Over 3 million individuals were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, including US Veterans like my father. ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY. SHAMEFUL.

It's spring time...

...and I have been wanting to do this for a while. I wanted to try to document the growth my little urban farm, and try to not only remember what I did last year, but hopefully share my experiences with others, so we all can have better urban farming success.

A little about me...I love to garden, farm, produce, whatever you want to call it. I was the dirty kid. The tomboy(ish). I was always outside when I was a kid, always asking questions. My parents took my older brother and I camping, a lot. We loved it. We recycled, and were members of the Sierra Club. The one thing I always wanted, and never had, was a vegetable garden. Not enough light, steep slopes, rocks, sand, it just never worked.

My brother and I started going to a leave-no-trace backpacking camp all summer, every summer until college, Camp Jack Hazard. It changed our lives. We learned vital lessons about nature and the importance of leaving no trace.

I took my love for the environment to college where I ended up majoring in Environmental Studies, and Geography. I got a little house with a garden my sophomore year, and started experimenting with growing my first garden. I got a job at the on campus environmental resource center and worked under the Environmental Department chair, who I looked up to, and learned a lot from. His garden inspired me.

After college, I ended up not going into anything environmental, largely due to the shitty economy, but found a job I still truly love. One thing it lacks though, is the connection to the soil, the earth, the outside, and the environment.

I spend all the spare time that I have, in the garden, or thinking about plans for the garden. I like to call it our urban farm. I live in a cottage with my boyfriend who definitely helps me with everything in the garden, and mostly, Stella, our precious blue Indian Runner Duck. We use Stella's poop, vermicompost (worm poop) and compost as fertilizer in the garden.

Stella

We try to keep everything as organic and sustainable as possible. This year we replaced about 80% of the soil in our 'raised beds' with organic vegetable garden soil and compost. We bought all of our seeds from the Petaluma Seed Bank. They sell organic heirloom seeds from the oldest seed company in America, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. Also, check out the Petaluma Seed Bank on facebook, they have a lot of interesting information.
 

Petaluma Seed Bank

Oldest seed company in the US

Neem Oil

We use neem oil as a pesticide, a naturally occurring deterrent of pests, mostly because it smells god awful. I heard about this stuff in one of my sustainability classes in college, and always remembered its name. It not only has the ability to repel most living creatures, but Indians call it the 'Pharmacy Tree', because it cures lots of medical conditions as well, from eczema to malaria. Works great on my plants, that's all I know. Just make sure you get the one that is specifically designed to be put on your plants, some neem products can burn them, as I have found out the hard way. I order my organic neem products from Amazon because they are pretty hard to find.