The greenhouse millipede, also known as the hothouse millipede, short-flange millipede, or the garden millipede, is a common creepy pest in your garden that can cause severe damage to emergent vegetable seedlings and young plants.
How do I identify These Millipedes?
There are few types of these millipedes with hundreds of legs and can be white or brown or black in color. Unlike their cousin, the centipede, millipedes are not carnivores, instead they eat dead and rotting vegetation and they hide in moist places like your soil mulch layer, debris or inside the top layer of soil. They prefer darkness and moisture and hence they are more common in rainy season.
Are Millipedes Poisonous or Venomous?
Do not be
too scared, Millipedes, unlike centipedes, are not venomous and are generally
considered to be non-poisonous. However, there are some millipede species that release
some fluids that can cause irritation to human skin. Hence its always better to
wear garden gloves and employ safety precautions.
How do I kill or get rid off these
garden pests?
There are many solutions to control millipedes. We will list out these one
by one in 5 steps:
5. Visible Millipedes can be smashed or can be swept with a broom or a vacuum cleaner and can be disposed. But this is difficult because most of these are not visible and are found hiding under the soil or mulch layer.
4. Sticky Traps and Light Traps are another option that attract and trap these millipedes. But these are not available easily.
3. Chemical Pesticides: We will just name these pesticides because, we will not use any chemicals in our garden, specially vegetable gardening. The chemical pesticides that work are Propoxur, Cyfluthrin, Pyrethrins, Piperonyl butoxide, Deltamethrin, Cypermethrin, bifenthrin, etc.
2. Chicken and Cats: Before we proceed to our natural remedies, we will discuss on chicken. Chicken love to eat these type of insects and pests. Keeping a few hens can do wonders to get rid of these millipedes and even other pests in your garden.Cats, though they do not eat millipedes, they may chase them, play with them and smash them to some extent.
- Natural and Organic Pesticides. The mechanism of action of any pesticide whether organic or inorganic chemical is Systemic effect which can be slow in action and Contact poisons which kill the pests when they come in contact with it.
- Diatomaceous Earth is first in the list: This white powder is easily available at many garden stores and even online. Its completely harmless to people and pets.
- Borax: Similar to Diatomacous Earth, Borax is derived from boric acid and dries the millipedes out and kills them. It also acts as a stomach poison that will kill millipedes if ingested. It’s completely safe to humans. Just sprinkle the boric acid over the areas of infestation and do not water it for atleast 24 hours. You can check out my detailed video and article on boric acid or borax powder for plants and garden.
- Wood Ash: The action is similar to borax powder which dries out the soil and the pests. I also have a detailed video and article on the benefits of wood ash in gardening.
Neem oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the Miracle Tree – that’s the Neem Tree. The botanical name of neem tree is Azadirachta indica. Azadirachtin and Nimbin found in neem oil are the two major compounds responsible for its antibacterial and antifungal actions.
This neem tree is native to the Indian subcontinent and can be easily grown at home gardening level even in large containers.
Before we discuss on which Neem oil you should purchase for best efficacy in gardening, we will list out the best uses of neem oil for your plants and gardening.
- Its Byfar the best Organic Pesticide available worldwide. It has an excellent safety profile and the best efficacy to treat a large number of pest attacks on your plants. It is infact a broad spectrum pesticide effective on pests like Aphids, Mealybugs, Whiteflies, Caterpillars,leaf miners, fungus gnats, Thrips and mites, Greenflies, Grasshoppers and other Scale insects. It kills pests in all their lifecyle stages like the adult stage or the larval stage.
- It has the Anti bacterial, anti viral and anti fungal properties not only for use on plants but also prescribed for humans and pets for various skin and hair problems.
- Its also effective on Slugs and snails which eat away a lot of your garden overnight. I have an important episode to identify some hidden pests and insects in garden by examining the leaf signature they leave after feeding on the leaves. You can watch that episode from a link in the video description or from an end screen.
- It highly Effective in the Treatment of Black spot Rose disease, Rose die back disease and Powdery mildew. We have detailed episodes on each of these plant diseases and problems. You can watch those episodes from the description links.
- Neem cake is an excellent organic fertilizer for your plants. Neem cake is the by-product left over after the process of extraction of neem oil from neem seeds or neem fruits. Its not only a source of NPK and micro nutrients for plant growth, but when mixed with soil acts as a soil conditioner and also antibacterial and antifungal. You can avoid fungus gnats if you incorporate about 10 percent neem cake powder in your potting mix.
- last but not the least is, unlike the chemical pesticides, It does not affect the beneficial pollinators like butterflies and honey bees which are so important for a fruitful gardening.
Now, we will discuss the most important aspect of this video, based on which the quality, composition and efficacy of neem oil depends – that’s the method of extraction of neem oil from seeds.
There are three methods:
- Heat Pressing method.
- Solvent extraction method and
- Cold Press method.
Heat pressing method – as the name implies, its using heat for crushing or pressing the seeds to extract oil.
Solvent extraction means using a solvent like alcohol is used to extract neem oil. This solvent extracted neem oil usually has a low price, because it is turbid and contains a significant amount of water and metals with low content of the important compounds namely azhadiractin and nimbin.
Heat extracted neem oil also has moderate loss of the useful compounds and less effective.
Whereas the Cold pressed Neem oil extracted without applying any heat, is the best and effective source for neem oil. So, when you are purchasing from a local garden store or online, make sure you check the method of extraction mentioned on the bottle or product description. You can purchase cold pressed neem oil here.
How to use Neem oil properly for the best effects?
Before I start with the neem oil recipes for plants, the safety profile of neem oil. It has few effects when concentrated form is ingested like stomach irritation causing gastritis and vomiting. Then Eye irritation and contact dermatitis can develop on contact specially in children. Otherwise it has an excellent safety profile and its completely biodegradable.
Now the recipe for Neem Oil you can make at Home.
Before this, few important points you must remember:
- Because it’s an oil, it doesn’t mix well with water and must be mixed with some kind of surfactant like liquid soap or even shampoo for proper mixing and the coating effect on the plant leaves.
- Make sure you do not spray neem oil during the sunlight – best time to spray is in evenings after the sun fades.
To Make the best broad spectrum PESTICIDE FOLIAR SPRAY FORMULATION for 1 litre:
Take 1 litre Warm Water and add 10 drops of liquid soap like your handwash or
even some shampoo. Then you add 5 ml to
10 ml of Neem oil into this. 5 ml if you want to spray as a maintenance
pesticide spray for your garden where you do not have much pests.
10 ml if you have lot of pests on your plants.
Mixing this thoroughly before use is very important.
Perform a PATCH TEST to know how strong it is. This means you Just spray this
on one or two leaves and then wait for a couple of hours to see if the leaf is
wilting or burning due to too much concentration of neem oil. If you pass the
patch test, you can spray it on your whole garden safely. Patch test may be
important for newbie gardeners or if you have purchased a new brand of neem oil
from some company for the first time.
Also make sure you spray the underside of the leaves as well.
- How frequently should I use neem oil? Depending on the severity of pests, use it twice a week for pest eradication phase and then weekly once for 1 or two months and finally if everything is clean use it once every 15 days as a preventive measure.
Happy Gardening!
By using Chemical Pesticides in our garden, we intentionally release harmful toxic and cancer producing substances into our environment.
Thankfully, there are a number of easily available natural substances that act as organic pesticides and are completely safe to use on our plants.
These home made natural pesticides can kill a variety of pests and bugs in our garden, either singly or in combinations. Combination of multiple substances can help you to provide a broad spectrum killing of a variety of pests like Aphids, whiteflies, mealybugs, spider mites, beetles, fleas, flies, mosquitoes, larvae, caterpillars, slugs and snails and many more.
Today, we will look into the formula or the recipe to make this All-purpose cocktail pesticide and most important its completely organic and safe to use.
Before we go into the ingredients, make sure you follow these three rules in applying this natural pesticide for your plants.
1. First and foremost, Always do a patch test on a leaf or a branch before applying all over your garden. If your leaf is getting burnt or wilting, then probably you need to reduce the concentration. And if you learn this adjustment, am sure you will have a pest free garden one day.
2. Secondly, make sure your spray even on the under sides of the leaves, and also flower buds and new growing shoots.
3. And lastly, do not apply during the sunny hours. Best time is evening and after sunset.
Now the Formula or the Recipe for this All purpose Organic Pesticide: We add 4 Ingredients to make this powerful pesticide liquid. This formula is to make 1 litre of this solution. So to 1 litre of warm water we add:
10 Drops Clove Oil – if you do not have clove oil, you can make a clove solution by taking 1 tablespoon of cloves and then crush them roughly and add this to a cup of warm water and leave it for 1 or 2 hours and then use this solution. Add a cup of this solution to water. But if you are using pure clove oil, you can use 10 drops only. The one you are seeing here I purchased online and this is approved by the ministry as a safe pesticide for organic vegetable gardening. You can use any pure clove oil brand from your store. You can find a link to purchase this at my website www.gkvk.in and also from a link in description below this video.
10 Drops Pure Neem Oil – get this from a trusted source. Even this purchase link you can find in description.
5 – 10 Drops of Eucalyptus Oil – This actually drives away bees and wasps. Use it if you do not mind driving away these pollinators or sometimes they are scary for your kids or you have a risk of anaphylaxis or allergic shock to bee or wasp stings or use them in special areas to protect your kids from bee or wasp stings.
10 drops of liquid soap like dish wash soap liquid for the coating or surfactant effect.
Its easy to remember this Formula like the Rule of 10 – that is 10 drops of each of these 4 ingredients.
Mix this well and load into your spray bottle and spray on your plants but first do a patch test and follow the rules already mentioned earlier.
i have used this same recipe and cleared almost all pests from my plants.
Initially you can use this weekly once for 3 weeks and eradicate all pests from your garden. Then as a maintenance dose or prophylactic use it in little lesser dilution atleast once every fortnight or atleast once a month.
Also watch my videos on Universal Fertilizer Recipe and Universal Potting Mix Recipes from the end screen links.
So there you have it folks, if you like this video click a thumbs up for me and share the video with your friends. Please do not forget to write your feedback in the comments section below the video.
Happy Gardening!