We strongly encourage the establishment of a naturally based control program in your garden .Such a program could involve a regular preventative, such as SM-90, added into your nutrient. Or it could mean using periodic releases of beneficial predators (good bugs who eat the bad bugs) into your environment to corral invasive insect numbers. OR it just could mean paying special attention to environmental factors in your growing area and keeping your eyes peeeled for problems. It should always involve removing dead plant material and debris along with egular monitoring for pests. It takes time and commitment to keep such a natural pest control program working, but it is very doable and it is not difficult. Below are the things to remember.

A healthy plant has a better chance
Evidence suggests that stressed and or/weakened plants are more likely to be attacked by insects and diseases as they are less capable of fighting them off. Pay close attention to the health of your plants. Monitor the nutrient and pH daily, making sure they are within the range that your plants need. Don't crowd plants too closely, and be sure to give them a gentle breeze.

Leave the unhealthy plants out!
Avoid bringing insect-infested plants into your garden. Carefully inspect transplants before you introduce them to your grow room. Wash them off with water, especially the bottoms of the leaves.

Keep in Clean!
Many pests thrive on plant debris in the garden. Keep your growing area clean. Pick up fallen leaves and keep them in a sealed trashcan.

Use yellow sticky traps
These little yellow traps are a good way to monitor insect populations. They are seldom enough to provide control, but they do help keep fungus gnat populations low as long as the sticky material is replaced when insects cover the board surface.

Take advantage of natural enemies
Beneficial insects, or predators have become more and more commonly found in the last few years. They are a great and natural way to keep pest populations below damaging levels. When used correctly as part of a pest management program they completely eliminate the need for insecticides. Remember, however, that beneficial insects will move elsewhere if there aren't enough pests to feed on. Also keep in mind that most pesticides don't discriminate between beneficial insects and pests.

If all else fails, spray
If in spite your best efforts you find yourself with a raging infestation, you will need to use some sort of insecticide. We carry several natural choices, and some very good organic ones. One of our current favorites is GC-MITE which is an entirely 100% organic broad spectrum insecticide. Be sure to use only the amount you need and to treat only the crops that need treating. We suggest testing a small area of a single plant before treating an entire grow area. Follow all label directions carefully!

If you need to use an insecticide to knock down a pest problem, do yourself a favor and use a natural, NOT a synthetic one. A synthetic spray might initially do the trick, but it will be toxic to you. Do you really want to eat pesticides? If you are taking the time to grow your own, chances are you will care enough to do the right thing and use natural remedies. They really work!

Be careful when spraying your plants. Test a small part of one or two plants and wait a few days to see how they react before you spray all your plants. Also remember that spraying kills good bugs and bad bugs alike, so be sure to wait the appropriate amount of time before adding predators. (usually a few days to a week with natural products.)

Neem Oil
Neem Oil comes from the pressed seed of the neem tree - Azadiracta indica Juss - to be exact. It's native to eastern India and Burma and has been used for medicinal purposes and pest control in India for thousands of years. Neem oil's various active ingredients work in a variety of ways, including acting as repellants, feeding inhibitors, egg-laying deterrents, growth retardants, sterilants and direct toxins. The multiple ways it attacks insects makes it very unlikely that insects will be able to develop a resistance.

More than 60 insect pests may be affected by neem including aphids, beetles, caterpillars, lace bugs, leafhoppers, leafminers, mealybugs, psyllids, thrips and whiteflies. (Read the label of the specific product you are using before application). Neem products may be registered for use on certain fruits, herbs and vegetables in addition to ornamentals. For edible crops, some neem-based products may be used up to the day of harvest.

Neem breaks down quickly and new growth will need to be sprayed regularly for continual insect inhibition.

Pyrethrins
Pyrethrins are natural insecticides found in daisy-like Chrysanthemum flowers grown and harvested in Kenya, Africa and Austrailia. Pyrethrum is the natural dried, powdered, head of the plant, Pyrethrins are the active chemicals found in the plant and Pyrethroids are synthetic compounds that resemble pyrethrins. This group is toxic to a large range of insects, including aphids, beetles, caterpillars, spider mites, fungus gnats and whiteflies.

The natural pyrethrins will quickly penetrate the nerve system of the insect, quickly paralyzing it. But, a 'paralyzing does' is not the same as a killing dose. The natural pyrethrins are swiftly detoxified by enzymes in the insect and some pests will recover. To delay the enzyme action and kill the bugs dead, , organophosphates, carbamates, or synergists are often added to the pyrethrins. Pyrethrin and the synergists are biodegradable and rapidly disintegrate in sunlight and air.

Insecticidal Soap
Soaps, which are sodium or potassium salts combined with fish or vegetable oil have been used as insecticides for hundreds of years. Soaps are virtually nontoxic to animals, however they basically suck the life right out of bugs by causing their cell walls to collapse.Soaps work best agains soft bodies mites and insects like aphids, scale, whiteflies and thrips. It breaks down quickly.

The initial cost of beneficial insects is almost always higher than buying a can of insecticide and initially, you might be tempted to use a spray, especially as you watch your plants being besieged by ravenous bugs. Over the long term however, beneficial insects become the economical choice. As a balance of beneficials is achieved within a grow area, there is less fluctuations of pest populations. Eventually, only small periodic releases of the beneficials are required. In large grow areas where undisturbed sections are available, the beneficials may establish themselves indoors and procreate without much help from you.

The main problem with using pesticides is that pests are brutally tenacious - one does not get a union card as a working pest without showing some diligence in survivability. If you rely as pesticides as the main control in your system, sooner or later the resident pest population becomes resistant. To suppress them, you'll have to used different or more pesticides which gets progressively more hazardous, bothersome and expensive. Pesticides will also kill beneficials, making pest control harder and more expensive in the future.

We suggest reducing high infestations by pruning or spraying plants with insecticidal soap or horticultural oil before the initial releases of beneficials. Don't use residual pesticides for a month before releasing beneficial organisms. Insecticidal soaps and horticultural oils can be used up to two days before release. There is no easy way to tell when enough predators have been released. The elimination of every last pest is not your objective. When all pests are eliminated, the beneficial insects die, too. A more realistic objective is to keep pest populations below the level where they cause unacceptable aesthetic or economic damage to plants. Only you can decide where this point lies. As your predators keep those mandibles going over the years, you may at times find yourself faced with "hot spots," local areas in the grow area where pest numbers climb beyond the ability of the predators to suppress them. Usually there is an environmental explanation for this; determining what the explanation is will help you to avoid the same problem in the future. Predators come shipped directly to your house and should be placed in the fridge until use. Instructions for bug release are included.

Spider mites are members of the arachnid class along with spiders and ticks. The term "spider mite" comes from their behavior of spinning fine silk webs on infested leaves and new growth. They look sort of like bristly black dots, and at 1/60th of an inch they are practically microscopic. Their eggs are visible too - they are very tiny, white and are laid grouped closely together. Infestations decrease plant production and the physical damage mites cause makes plants unattractive and weak.

Many houseplants indoors are hospitable to spider mite infestations, and the same goes for plants grown in an indoor growroom or greenhouse. Miites damage plants by piercing single leaf cells and sucking out the contents, causing the cells to collapse and die. This is the cause of the speckled browning found on leaves with spider mite infestations. The undersides of leaves may appear yellowish and crusty. In heavy infestations the mites remove nearly all the chlorophyll, and leaves crumple, die and fall off. When large populations have been present for a few weeks, fine silk webbing may cover large areas of the plant. The mites disperse from a plant of declining food quality on threads of webbing and drift or are blown on to other plants. If you look closely at these webs you can see tiny little spiders running back and forth.

There are so many Aphid species that just about every plant has at least one species that likes it. The first thing you might notice when you have aphids is that the plants aren’t thriving or are even wilting. If you look at the growing tips of your plants or underneath young leaves, you’ll see dense colonies of tiny (I - 3 mm), soft bodied, pear-shaped insects. They are also known to congregate in the areas of new growth, so you might find them right in the center of your lettuce rosettes. They might be green, yellow, brown, red or black depending on the species and the plants they feed on. A few species look like they are covered in some sort of wooly or waxy substance and are white or grey. Aphids feed by inserting their piercing-sucking mouthparts into the vascular system (phloem) of the plant and sucking out the sap. This causes discoloration, curling, crinkling and wilting of leaves, malformation and distortion of buds and shoots, leading to plant stunting and deformities, reducing the vigor of the plant.

Aphids can be washed off with water, or sprayed with horticultural soaps and oils. Two great organic alternatives are Neem Oil and GC-Mite. Pyrethrins are also highly effective. Green Lacewings are great choice as are Aphid predators. You may want to use yellow sticky traps as a monitoring device for future infestations, although you may find that you catch more beneficials than aphids!

It's also good to know that high levels of nitrogen are very favorable to aphid reproduction. If you are experiencing regular aphid problems you might try lowering your nutrient levels a bit. Your plants will probably be ok (keep an eye on them) and your aphid popoulations might fall.

Thrips are so small to the naked eye that they are hard for the average eye to see. They are about 1/5 of an inch long. They look like barely visible, slightly moving, straight lines clusterd next to the veins underneath leaves. Sometimes they are described as worms with legs. Usually their fecal waste and the damage they cause to the leaves are more visible than the thrips themselves.

Thrips feed by scraping the surface of plant leaves and sucking the juice out, leaving ;eaf surfaces finely speckled with yellow spots. Later, a silvery metallic looking sheen may cover leaf surfaces. (Not all thrips create this sheen.)

Insecticidal soaps are effective against thrips as are nematodes and lacewings.

Whiteflies look like tiny white moths hanging out on the leaves of your plants. When you shake the leaves, they will flutter around and the settle back down. They are most likely to be found near the tops of the plants.

They are sucking insects that secrete a sticky honeydew made from the sap of the plants they are living on. Some plants can handle a few whiteflies, but susceptible plants may exhibit wilting, chlorosis (yellowing), loss of leaves, or slowed growth. The honeydew they secrete can become host to a black fungus called sooty mold. It makes the plant look dirty, and if it gets out of hand, it can kill the plant.

Whiteflies can be difficult to get rid of, as they are highly prolific reproducers . You would be wise to monitor for whiteflies with yellow sticky cards (they are attracted to the color yellow).

• Use a vacuum to suck up adults early in the morning (as soon as the lights go on). Low temperatures make them slow moving and easy to catch.
• Use an insecticidal soap or neem oil in areas where the populations are very high to kill nymphs and eggs.
• Order Whitefly Parasites, releasing one to five per plant or one for every 10 square yards of plant area. You should aim for no more than one adult whitefly per leaf at time of parasite release

Those little black critters flying around the base of your plants are known as fungus gnats. The term refers to a large group of insects, most of which have not been extensively studied. They reproduce in moist, shaded areas in decaying organic matter like leaves and algae. Larvae not only feed on fungi and decaying organic matter, but on living plant tissue, particularly root hairs and small feeder roots. Usually, there are very few ill effects from these flies, but control is advised. After the roots have been injured, root rots may attack the plant. Entire crops have been lost in this manner. The plant symptoms may appear as sudden wilting, loss of vigor, poor growth, yellowing and foliage loss.

Fungus gnats can be easily controlled with a pyrethrin spray. They can also be physically captured with yellow sticky cards.Perhaps the most important weapon you have against fungus gnats (and all pests) is good grow room sanitation. Don’t allow decaying plant material to buildup. Always remove fallen leaves, algae, or any sort of organic material that collects around the base of plants. This material is a breeding ground for pests and diseases.