Lately I’ve had a pretty bad infestation of spider mites and aphids and I have been looking for the best solution for my plants without getting into nasty chemicals that will affect the taste of my food at harvest. Gnats are another common indoor gardening pest I have had trouble with. A simple solution for gnats is the yellow sticky paper that you can put along the walls and on posts in the containers of your plants. Spider mites however don’t really fly around or get attracted to the bright yellow colors. They seem to just be attracted to the pretty green leaves of my plants! Flattering… except spider mites are gross and I would not like to eat them, regardless of how much they want to eat the leaves of my plants.
I tried spraying some solution of Neem PY onto my plants and it takes a few days to kick in but it slows down the infestation for sure. Neem makes the bugs slow and frankly just plain stupid. The bugs aren’t killed instantly, so don’t feel like you’ve been cheated because all your bug problems are still there. The neem makes the bugs not hungry and unable to reproduce. The bugs will eventually starve to death and the babies will hatch damaged or will eat the neem on the leaves right away and become affected. The Neem PY wouldn’t stop the infestation completely but it certainly crippled them. No matter how much neem I used the spider mites kept coming back. One time I used too much neem too close to harvest and I could taste its tangy flavor on my food. It wasn’t as horrible as a I thought and was better than eating mites, but I would rather have the best food possible not just “okay” food. Thats why I grow my own!
To get the infestation in check I picked up some of General Hydroponics’ AzaMax because two other indoor gardeners recommended it to me. I figured it would work like Neem PY but it was actually amazing how much stronger it was. I foliar fed the AzaMax to my plants and than poured some solution into my hydro reservoirs to ensure the plants would be bug proof. After about two days it seems like almost all the spider mites have died or stopped moving. It definitely helped control the gnat problem too. I have not harvested the food the AzaMax has been applied to since it is new but I will be sure to write about how it has affected the food flavor and aroma if at all. If you decide to go and try AzaMax I would try foliar applications at first to see if you can rid the problem that way. This is especially good if you are still in the grow phase and the fruits you will be eating or picking have not started to form yet. AzaMax is a little pricey for how much it recommends to use but I promise it does work well. I will most likely continue to use Neem PY and AzaMax as a preventative and reactionary pest control solution.
Another good feature of AzaMax is that it is OMRI (Organic Materials Review Institute) approved. Sometimes labels can be questionable since any company can label their products “organic.” Look for the OMRI or other official organic labels. Make sure to look up and research any product you think is suspicious or may be claiming to be organic. You can take a look at the OMRI web site here. Even though some forms of hydroponic systems use inorganic parts, I still think it is best to get the closest thing you can to organic every time. I believe this can yield a more natural and usually sweeter tasting fruit or vegetable.
Get General Hydroponics AzaMax at Amazon today to protect your indoor garden investment. You can also read customer reviews here.
If you have a lot of pets it is very easy to create a small container garden to provide fresh snacks for them. A small container garden is also very cheap and can be automated. An automated container garden for organic pet food is very economical and easy to set up. A small recirculating drip system can be built for about $30. Thirty dollars is a small price to pay for a garden system that will last years and provide many harvests of fresh greens. Assorted seed packs of salad mixes are very cheap($2-$5). One pack of seeds may last you a whole year depending on the rate you use them. You can’t get fresh organic pet food that you can trust at that price!
