Need help with pests

[LikeTiffany]

Need help with pests on kale plants. Tiny little mites or aphids, not quite sure. Can anyone offer advice for non-synthetic natural pest control? These are food plants so I’d like to make sure I’m not using anything synthetic.

 

[oneeye]

Cold-pressed neem oil mixed with a drop of dish soap in warm water will kill adult spider mites. You will have to spray every few days to kill the newly hatch eggs for a while. The problem with neem is it will leave a bad taste in your mouth when you eat the kale. So spray the leaves until the bugs are gone then start harvesting the leaves without neem and leave the neen leaves.

Another solution which some people say is better is to use insect netting over the plants as a barrier to stop them. Its cheap and easy to us, just pin it down with wire stakes. Good luck and keep use posted.

 

[Chuck]

IMO a gardener needs 3 different things to take care of any pest found in the vegetable garden. These are Neem Oil, a product made from the Neem tree. It is a miticide, an insecticide and a fungicide, all in one product. It has many uses and applications. Then there is Bt worm killer. The Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis. It ONLY kills caterpillars and it does an excellent job. It is made from a bacteria. And lastly there is Spinosad. This is my go to main product for pests found in the garden. It kills most insects very well plus it also kills caterpillars but not as well as Bt does. Spinosad is made from a soil bacteria. If by some chance none of the above work on a particular bug I resort to Pyrethrin which is made from the Chrysanthemum flower. I rarely ever use this product and only on hard to kill adult insects such as the Leaf Footed Stink Bug.

 

[LikeTiffany]

Cold-pressed neem oil mixed with a drop of dish soap in warm water will kill adult spider mites. You will have to spray every few days to kill the newly hatch eggs for a while. The problem with neem is it will leave a bad taste in your mouth when you eat the kale. So spray the leaves until the bugs are gone then start harvesting the leaves without neem and leave the neen leaves.

Another solution which some people say is better is to use insect netting over the plants as a barrier to stop them. Its cheap and easy to us, just pin it down with wire stakes. Good luck and keep use posted.

For this one, the bugs are all over the entire plant. Is it worth it for me to just pull this whole plant out and keep the non-infested ones?

 

[Meadowlark]

For this one, the bugs are all over the entire plant. Is it worth it for me to just pull this whole plant out and keep the non-infested ones?

In my opinion, no. That infested plant may very well be doing you a service in effect garding the other plants.

Remove it and the bugs will go to another plant.

Best to treat as @oneeye advised, kill the bugs, and then decide whether or not to remove the damaged one.

It is acting like a trap which can help you kill them all...but you must take action without delay as advised.

My 2 cents.