My Experience With Growing an Organic Container Garden: Pesky Pests 5

 The plants being outdoors has been a good thing for them overall. The gnats seem to be completely gone but there are some new pests to deal with. I went out of town for the Memorial Day weekend and had my son taking care of them.  Before I left, there were a few little holes in some of the zucchini and cucumber leaves, but when I came home, there were huge chunks missing and some of the leaves were kind of stuck together and looked like they had spider webs on them. Some of the leaves looked like they were disintegrating and some had just the green part of the leaf missing, with the clear "skin" part of the leaf still there. 

 

I did some research and determined it was caterpillars.  I looked up some options to get rid of them and decided neem oil was the best option.  There were also a lot of tiny black things on the leaves and I researched that as well.  I am not sure if the black things were insect eggs or insect poop, but either way, I wanted it gone.  I removed the leaves that been eaten and/or had eggs or poop on them.  

 

I went to Lowes and while I was there a lady that worked there asked me if I needed help and she said the only thing  that got rid if caterpillars was Sevin. I asked her if it was organic, and she said it was safe for consumption, but not organic. I had my son Google it and it said it had an ingredient in it that was a carcinogen.  I decided I would rather lose the plants completely to these pests and issues, then resort to using a chemical on them. After all the whole point of starting all this was to have organic fresh vegetables.  

 

I used the neem oil and it seems to be helping.  I sprayed the leaves liberally in the evening, and  sprayed anywhere there new black things.  I had to remove a lot of leaves that had been eaten, and and not sure if those plants will come back.