Organic mealy bug repellent

In the previous post I identified the Papaya mealy bug - Paracoccus Marginatus on our papaya.

So - I checked out what are the possible organic responses and found some good resources:

PAN Germany: Describes the uses of chili

Golden Harvest Organics: A list of insects and pests, and appropriate organic repellents

Canadian Country Woman: Describes various bug sprays

The Urban Gardener, and A Canadian in King Parakramabahu's Court recommend neem oil, which I haven't tried yet.

So - I decided to use chili, as we have a regularly producing organic chili plant, and garlic (from the market).

This was the harvest


chopped up with garlic - it smelt nice! :)


and put in a jar to steep in the sun (because I was too lazy to boil it, which would probably be more effective)


and then I strained it, and diluted with some water and biodegradable washing up liquid. I used an old surface cleaner spray bottle (WW's idea, instead of buying a new one) to spray it on.


One papaya was too far gone already,


so we pulled it up and burnt the top :( For the other ones, we first sprayed off the bugs with water, then sprayed on the repellent.

James Missier commented on a previous post that some ants can bring mealy bugs onto plants.


I don't know if these ants brought them, but they certainly were found wherever there were mealy bugs


I know that ants are perhaps the only other species, apart from humans, that have 'domesticated' other animals for their own purposes. And it's pretty fascinating. But not on my plants! Argh! :/


Anyway, I'm happy to say that after spraying every two-three days for about a week, there don't seem to be any more bugs (touching wood).

Grasshopper in the organic mint

One of the problems with organic gardening is that you can't just give a blast of insecticide or herbicide from time to time to reduce pests. So far, we haven't had any major problem, so touch wood that continues.

Often in the morning I cut some organic mint to make some lovely tea - mint tea is very nice for an unsettled stomach, so it's good when you have a hangover too :)

When I was picking off the wilted leaves and such, it suddenly turned out that this guy had come in with the mint


Grasshoppers are officially of the suborder Caelifera, but apart from that I dunno what it was. It was about 4-5 cm long, and you can see how it blends in with the green of the leaves. Its main defence strategy seemed to be to freeze and hope nobody sees it, which was useful for taking photos of it!

Spider eats a mantis

The other day, while harvesting some of our chillies, WW spotted this


It seems like some member of the Mantidae family went into the wrong neighbourhood...


Normally I welcome spiders gobbling up insects, but maybe in this case it's less good, as apparently Mantises can be good for organic farming because they eat other insects, as do spiders I suppose…


Another interesting thing is, similar to the previous post, that the pattern on the spider’s back looks a bit like a face of some Japanese comic villain, or perhaps a malevolent Lord Shiva.


What do you think?

myBlogS 2009 - Malaysian Blog Survey

I have not been updating for a while - not because our garden has stopped growing, but because I'm well busy with this

It's for my research into the monetisation of Malaysian blogs - I'm doing an anthropology PhD on the Malaysian blogosphere, focusing on how monetisation is affecting blogs, bloggers, and blogging.

If you read Malaysian blogs, please take the time (5-10 minutes for blog readers, 10-15 minutes for bloggers) to do the survey. As a token of appreciation, there's a prize draw for participants - the top prizes are Platinum Movie Suite vouchers. The summarised results will be posted online once I have compiled them.

And feel free to tell anyone you know who may be interested! :)

Click here to do the Malaysian Blog Survey

For the gardeners out there - here's a picture of some colourful iridescent beetles - I'm not sure if they are good or bad for the plants, but they look nice anyway :)

Insect food

Well, insects eating leafs are not always my favourite sight, but the methodical planning of this one struck my eye

Eating around the edge first

before, 8-9 minutes later, starting to tuck into it properly


I think it's some kind of hemiptera. The plant is a weed