Well, I'm going to pony up and get going with both neem and karanja. A big attack of cucumber beetles has finally tipped me over to where I really need to start using it. Here is the problem where I need actual experience with this stuff. I simply cannot afford cake AND oil at the same time. I'll end up with both, just not at the same time. I know the oils for the quicker knockdown of bugs, but what I'm thinking of is the meal for adding to a mix currently cooking and top dressing for some of the not badly infested plants. I do have some cuke seedlings that need to be transplanted (staggered planting) and the zucchini, that is going like gangbusters is just lightly affected. I'm thinking adding meal to the seedling mix and top dressing the zucchini. If I have to, I'll just write off the beat up cukes. Of course the beetles also brought PM, bacterial wilt and whatever other crap they infect cukes with and it's only 2 buckets. Now, for the practical. What do you normally add/cf? As a top dress, if none was added to the mix? I'm looking more to the pest prevention bit rather than a N source. Same amounts for both the neem and karanja meal? Will probably be making up at least 10cf in the next couple of months and have a sneaky feeling that the 5lb bags just aren't going to cut it. So, what's the best way of building my stash when I can't do it all at once? Oh, I do know where to order, but not how much and of what. Thanks. Wet
Hiya Wet! I think I'd get neem and/or karanja meal first. That way you can still make a neem meal tea that has good efficacy when sprayed on your garden and use it in your soil mix. The usual amount to use per cu/ft in a soil mix is a half cup. If you're going to top dress, no more than a couple of tbsp's in a #5 - #7 nursery pot. If you're fighting cucumber beetles, the neem meal will work by inhibiting the eggs from hatching. Cucumber beetles lay their eggs in the soil around the base of the plants. The hatching larvae won't be able to eat and if you spray with the neem meal tea, it will affect the adults the same way. Meanwhile, see if you can get your hands on some yellow sticky traps. They're quite effective at catching the little fuckers. AW has had success using them in his garden. I would definitely follow up with a neem oil purchase when the time is right. If one uses neem oil religiously in his IPM program, you're pretty much guaranteed to be pest free IME. One last thought. Download the pdf file from this post: http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1169188-organics-lounge.html/page-732?p=20317557#entry20317557 Its a good read on integrating essential oils in to your IPM program and worth having in your bookmarks. All the best, Chunk Edit: Buildasoil sells the Neem Resource products and will mix and match the different neem products and ship them all in one box. You could order an amount of neem-karanja meal and a pint of neem oil to have all your bases covered and have all the right stash in one shipment. http://buildasoil.com/products/neem-and-karanja-mixed-50-50
Great advice man. I'd go with the cake over the oil as well - you can always make it tea & spray that. Build a soil is definitely cheaper then going right to neem resource.com these days because of their deals on shipping. I actually wasn't even aware of it until yesterday when I was talking to Lumper about it. You learn something new every day and it's a good thing because I just paid through the nose to ship a half-gallon from neemresource. I could've saved a bunch of money by going through build a soil. Good luck wetdog. J
Thanks to the both of you, especially the BAS tip. I was going straight to neemresource and would have gotten hosed on shipping and never even looked at BAS. Chunk, the 1/2 cup/cf is good news also. Very good news! That means that 5 lbs will be enough to get me started at least for the top dressing, a few cf of mix, and some teas. Of course, if I can, I'll get 10 lbs, 'cause I know it's going to get used. The yellow sticky traps are easy with all the dairys in the area. I used to be a "Licensed Applicator" when I was in Landscaping and know my way around chemicals. Still have some pretty gnarly ones if the need really arises. But, reading the life cycle of the cuke beetle showed me that there was no simple, chemical, *surgical strike* solution. Especially in an edible crop. Even if they were ornamental, I'd still be looking at the neem. Pyrethum (sp?) or Sevin just isn't going to do much, especially with the soil aspect of the cycle. Neem does. Thanks again, both of you. Got plenty of reading to do and orders to wait on. Wet
Ordered the 5# box of 50/50 neem/karanja meal just so I could get things going. I do think though, that in the future I'll order the neem and karanja separate and blend myself. IDK, just never been a big fan of anything blended and prefer to source individual ingredients. But, with the cuke beetle, one site mentioned better results with neem+karanja over neem alone so I jumped on the blend. Quick question: I would guess, with the blend, I would need 1cup/cf in a mix, since that would equal 1/2 cup of neem and 1/2 cup of the karanja. Or, would that be dumping too much N into the mix? Wet
Fwiw, I use at least 1 cup/CF Wetdog and probably more. I've not ever had an issue with too much N. J
I was mainly thinking of the 2cf of mix sitting in the wheel barrow that is pretty much finished. The N source there is ~2cups/cf of a alfalfa/soy meal blend. Adding 2 cups of the neem/karanja blend to this will give me the 1/2 cup/cf of each reccd for pest control and shouldn't shoot the N sky high. I mix 2cf at a pop. Using the 1 cup+/cf, I would guess you are also using alfalfa meal? IDK if you mess with soy meal or not. I really like a blend of 3 parts soy to 2 parts alfalfa. Even better than the 50/50 blend I was using before. Wet
Wet, I dont start to see systemic benefit in my mj until I hit 1cup+ Per cf. I second the meal, dual uses. When I mix my amendments I calc neem first at 1 cup per cf. Alfalfa and kelp are right behind neem.
I saw immediate benefits from using neem meal at 1/2 cup c.f. in mixes but I've found a much easier time maintaining pest free, healthy girls since bumping it up to 1 cup per c.f. I also very much like the neem teas, for both fertigation and soil drenches. Works very well. I'm down to once a week maintenance sprays and have not seen an issue in over 4 months, which is about the time I changed the neem amount in my soil mixes.
hey wet.. i got a pretty good cucumber beetle attack here as well.. one of my plants died to that wilt that they spread. The others are dong well so far. the beetles have slowed down a lot, just seeing 1 or 2 here and there now, and killing those by hand. i used a ton of yellow sticky traps, sprinkled neem meal on the soil where the stem comes out and scratched some in there as well. made a tea and doused the plants pretty good.. and so far that's been working well. good luck man..
That's just the problem and just what I'm gonna do. I think I'm just going to trash the 2 that are badly wilted, re-amend that particular mix with a stiff shot of neem, then set it aside for putting something else in, not cukes. What I do have are seedlings that will be transplanted into fresh mix that I'll be adding some neem+karanja to. Perhaps some good news though. All of the seedlings from the 'seed pack' are pretty beat up from the beetles and wilt. I did let one cuke go to seed last year from this same package. I planted some of those seeds about 3 weeks after the 'store bought' seeds. They look great in comparison to the 'store bought', but I have no idea about the quality of the fruit. I'll know in a few days as there are a couple cukes almost big enough to harvest. Hope they aren't bitter or anything, because the plants themselves are doing great. We'll see. Wet
wet.. donno if you read this article, but it's pretty handy. I may try putting mine out a bit later next year. I'm bummed that they took down my lagest plant.. it had some nice cukes on there and tons of flowers.. just woke up one morning and it was wilted to death lotsa good info in the article.. \tOrganic Control Measures for Striped Cucumber Beetles
Read it, that's why I have the seedlings. I staggered some of the seed pack seeds, and then for S&G, planted some of the seeds I harvested from last year a week after that. But, information is a bit sketchy on the plant, so I didn't know how the seeds would come out. So far, so good, but I still need to taste the fruit. I'll know in a couple of days. Wet
For both of you and Jerry also: When you bumped the neem up to 1cup/cf, did you decrease other meals a like amount? Did any of you use both neem and karanja, and if so, in what amounts? Like 1 cup of each/cf? I am using ~2 1/2cups of alfalfa/soy blend/cf currently in my mixes and I'm sure I'll need to change amounts to make room for the neem and perhaps the karanja. Thanks! Wet
good luck wet.. lemme know how it works out for you. BTW i think that article says something about "burpless" varieties being less prone to beetle attacks.. i can say that as far as this burpless variety that i'm growing, that there's absolutely no truth to that at all lol.. i'm really thankful they stayed away from my watermelons, that woulda pissed me off since 1/2 my garden is melon vines.
Do do do do (theme music) Rod Serling voice ................. You are entering the dimension of the organic ..... do do do do What? Because I asked a question, or that I'm actually going to spend big $$$ shipping seed meal? Got the answer I was looking for. Actually, several, and all were based on experience. GIMIK Reading a bit into the synergistic effect of neem + karanja, I got the 50/50 meal blend. Even though what I was reading concerned combining the oils. Using 1 cup of the blend/cf more or less keeps it into being a reasonable cost. Plus, I still have most of a 40lb bag of soy meal and about 1/4 of a 40lb bag of alfalfa. Wet
That's it, right there... Love the theme music accompaniment... Seems as if your concern may be with overloading the soil with "N", considering the alfalfa/soy input? If memory serves, neem (don't know about the karanja) seems to have some kind of chemical quality to it that interrupts/has some kind of effect on the nitrification process and prevents the loss of ammonium (NH[SUB]4[/SUB]<sup>+</sup>, which as a "gas" in aqueous solution is easily lost to the atmosphere) when soil bacterium start to get their groove on. Ammonium is the source of nitrogen toxicity...