I found out what was eating on my eggplant's leaves. I caught it in the act! It was a very large moth, about as wide as a quarter (wings closed) and a reddish tan. How can I keep him off of my plants naturally? I'm also fighting tiny ants. We have underground colonies all over the property. I REALLY don't want to use pesticides like my mom would have me do. (her garden too)
Make a strong "tea" from chewing tobacco and spray it liberally on the leaves... No bugs will eat them. For the ants look for a product called Terro. It's a clear gell that you apply to squares of cardboard. It's nontoxic (borax) and will wipe out the whole colony of ants.
Diatomaceous earthpour this crap around the ant holes i have used 40-1 standard solution of dish soap and water..soap should me anti-bacterial to get rid of bugs...can be used right up to but not including fruit/flower formation...mix and spray entire plant
Should not be a problem, Borax is a naturally occurring mineral. I found this on their website... http://www.terro.com/faq-ants.php While that's not specifically about organic gardens, it shows it's safe. As safe as the diatomaceous earth rolling mentions. If you still have concerns about "organic" there is a place on that page to ask. I've always looked at diatomaceous earth as a repellent (keeping ants away) than a method of removing a colony completely. Never used it directly on ant holes.... It is good at keeping all crawling bugs away from the house though. X2 for the soap... I mix soap with the tobacco "tea" at times, as it stays on the leaves longer, say during a rainy spell. The tobacco can be used during fruiting as it washes completely away from the food at harvest. If you have a flowering plant that needs bee interaction, just keep it off the flowers and spray the rest of the plant... it won't bother the bees that tobacco tea is on the rest of the plant. You can use a standard spray bottle to apply.
Thanks for the ideas guys. As far as the soap, I mixed some vinegar, peppermint Dr. Bronners and canola oil and sprayed the ants. They took two steps and dropped. It seems more short term to me.
I looked them up and couldn't find exactly what it was. But I also saw a very long and slender black bug on the back of one of the leaves.
If you can build up the eco-system in your yard, and plant things to attract the good bugs, you'll have less work of trying to keep the bad bugs in check. Nature will take care of things for you, if you learn to work with it.