Pest Control

Having your herb garden indoors minimizes many pests.

There are two main types of pest around your indoor herb garden. Insects such as white fly, spider mites and fungus flies or fungus gnats. These are insects that either directly or their offspring suck the life from the plant. You may also get aphids indoors but not as likely as outdoors.

The second group of pests is diseases such as black fungus, leaf mold, powdery mildew or downy mildew.

Since adding two garlic chive plants to my collection and being more careful about watering, I have not seen any fungus gnats around.

Proper air circulation is one of the best ways to minimize fungus and mildew problems. If you do get powdery mildew (see Successes and Failures for examples) or black spot at the base of your herb, try some copper sulphate as a spray or as a dust to control and eliminate the problem. There are also organic oil sprays made with rosemary oil, sesame seed oil, other herbal oils and a base of canola oil that can be sprayed on the plants. These work by smothering the fungus or mildew. Oils also control flying pests and aphids. They are expensive at some $16 to $18 per bottle. But one bottle is a many years supply unless you are also using it outdoors and indoors. Pharm-Oil is the brand Tagawa Gardens carries. This brand is listed as safe for edible herbs and vegetables.

The old standard is Neem Oil which can be obtained mixed or in concentrate for mixing your own. Neem oil is not recommended for use around food handling areas so be careful when you use it.

Also any oil spray should not be sprayed directly on the soil as the oils will smother the fine hair roots just under the surface and kill them. Dead roots decay. Decay causes fungus problems. (This from Dee at Tagawa Gardens)

Wettable sulphur can be used as a dust or a spray to control fungi.

Home Made Pest Controls:

You can also make your own pest controls. Crush a couple of garlic cloves, chop ½ to one small onion and boil in 1 quart of water for about ten to fifteen minutes. Strain through a fine cloth or a coffee maker filter to remove the physical matter. Let cool, mix one cup of canola oil or one cup of rosemary oil with the filtered mixture. Use it in your spray bottle. The oil will help keep the spray on the plant and smother both insect eggs and plant diseases. The garlic and onion will help to make your plants undesirable to the adult insects. You can also mix 1/4 cup of liquid ivory dish soap or lemon Joy soap to improve the spread of the spray. The soap acts as a wetting agent allowing the oil spray to spread out over the leaves more evenly.

The Baking Soda spray is another one.

Add 1 tablespoon of baking soda to a gallon of water and mix well.  This spray can be used as a foliar spray and as a soil spray.

Add 1 tablespoon of lemon joy or liquid ivory dish soap. The Joy has a small amount lemon oil in it which will improve the smothering effect to kill insects and fungi. The amount of oil is not enough to prohibit using it as a soil spray too.

Be sure to spray the top and bottom of the leaves. And only spray before any direct sunlight is on the plant. If you spray during the heat of the day, you will likely burn the leaves due to the direct sunlight on the wet leaves. The water droplets act like a magnifying glass increasing the power of the sun’s rays.

You can also purchase Potassium Bicarbonate at the nursery instead of Baking Soda. Follow directions for mixing the Potassium Bicarbonate.

Be sure to wear some kind of mask and safety glasses when using any dust type of control.

For fungi control spray about every 7 days.

And agitate the spray device regularly to keep the soda or potassium bicarbonate mixed well.

After wetting down the plants, I turn my oscillating fan on and let it dry the leaves more quickly.

The advantage to the baking soda and bicarbonate sprays is they can be used up to the day of harvest. Neem oil mixed properly can also be used to the day of harvest.