Gardening

gardensalive.com has some great organic products that you can order online. I dislike chemicals too, and just ordered some organic fertiser for my lawn. Best of luck.

you can try a mild soap solution. I won't hurt the plants and the bugs won't like it. Also, for slugs you can put out saucers of beer. no joke! It works, they get drunk and die I guess...

mix water with garlic and spray the plants.dont know about the slugs

I have placed a pan of beer in the garden. They migrate to it. That works great.

I have planted marigolds.

And, crush up eggshells. I'm told that slugs don't like to crawl across something rough.

If you have a problem with rabbits, you can put some cut human hair on the groung around the plants they are eating. The hair keeps them away because they think a person is there. My grandpa used to do this in his garden and would get the hair that his barber swept up off the floor!!

S.

Put some beer in a shallow container near the plants and the snails/slugs will crawl into it, get drunk and drown. I have used that method for many years and it works like a charm. I don't know if this works or not, but I recently watched a movie where they were putting pieces of apples near the plants and then in the morning, the apple slices had all the slugs on them instead of the plants. I think I might try that one, as well, though the beer works great. As for bugs eating your plants, what kinds of bugs on which plants? If you have beetles, you can take an old butter tub with some water in it and knock the beetles off the branches into the water. There's books, too, on natural bug repellants that you might be interested in obtaining.

Go to organicgardening.com and you will find all the info you need about battling bugs without chemicals. You can trap slugs in a shallow dish of beer, also using mulches helps a lot. There are soaps and sprays you can buy or make at home that are safe for aphids and all kinds of pests.

Try this website. Mom got some nematodes and they killed the japanese beetles, but didn't hurt the bees. Also you can get some diatamatious (sp) you can google it and find out about them. Totally organic beneficial bugs.
http://www.suburbanhabitat.com/pd_beneficial-nematodes.ph...
Hope that helps

you can mix 1 Tbsp. dish soap per 1 gallon water and spray it on your plants daily, and on any bugs you see on the plants. That should help control it a bit. I used it to help with the japanese beetles eating up my roses and crepe myrtle. Good luck!

Besides buying lady bugs, I've heard of people use a product called Basic-H from Shaklee and putting it on it.

I have heard on several different ocassions that you can plant different types of herbs in your gardent and the smell will ward off any type of insect. Not sure what type of herbs though. You can always research on the internet or call your local county extension office. You can call ###-###-#### if you are in the Phenix City, AL area.

Slugs LOVE beer. If you put a jar lid ( or not so deep container out for overnight. You'll draw them to that instead of your plants.

Bayer makes earth friendly bug repellent. Right now, the Japanese beetles are in full force.
Great website: walterreeves.com It will allow you to submit specific problems and get answers.
He is the extension agent for UGA. He also has a weekly show on WSB AM 750 from 7:30-9:30am on Saturday morning.
I am a perennial gardener myself. They are more hardy than the annuals.
Good luck,
Cathy

My grandmother always used wood ash around her plants to make bugs shy away. Depending on what you have attacking your garden, you may also want to try spraying your plants with a insecticidal soap/water/cheyenne pepper solution, placing citris peels in the garden area, beer traps for slugs and sow bugs, or introducing lady bugs for aphids and soft bodied insects. You can actually buy lady bugs and place them in your yard at night so they will have time to find a home and won't fly away. Try checking out Paul James on HDTV.com. He is an organic gardener and has some awesome ideas. good luck.