organic Organic pest control..?

[acs1]

Heard a racket outside on the patio where I keep my young plants. Went out to see whats up and found 2 bluejays playing tug of war with a massive hornworm.  Very nice...!!!
 
Have very minimal if any hornworm damage since the birdfeeder went up on the other side of the patio...
 
5 jays seem to be stationed on the plant stand ready to protect. Hope bird poo won't hurt the plants..?
 
 

 

[The_NorthEast_ChileMan]

That's as organic as you can get!

 

[Edmick]

I think the birds are your best bet for controlling those bastards. Can also use a black light at night to find them and pick them off manually. A little more time consuming but very effective.

 

[Siv]

Bird feeder! Genius! I'm setting up one tomorrow for my soil plants. I've already picked of half a dozen hornworms and I'm going on vacation so won't be there to patrol.

 

[solid7]

Sometimes, they turn asshole and peck at the pods, though.  Cardinals are the worst in my yard about this.

 

[acs1]

Bird feeder! Genius! I'm setting up one tomorrow for my soil plants. I've already picked of half a dozen hornworms and I'm going on vacation so won't be there to patrol.

 
Thanks but can't take credit for the birdfeeder. Was the Significant Other's idea. And it wasn't to control garden pests, it was for her amusement. Its just a coincidence it serves  both purposes.
 
 I recommend to take it down at nite otherwise it attracts rodents. Actually it attracts a different rodent during the day, squirrels. So unless you are willing and have a means to control the rodent pests, a garden birdfeeder might not be ideal for you.
 
I'm not sure the jays inherently knew the hornworms were hanging out under the leafs, maybe. Here is my anecdotal account from about 11 months ago when the bird feeder first went up and the jays started to constantly populate the trees right next to my patio/garden.
 
 One day was working my young plants on the patio close to the birdfeeder/trees. Was picking off  small hornworms that had recently infested my young plants. Was putting them on the table to dispose of after I pulled them all off. Thought I had about half dozen or so of the little bastards on the table. Turned around to collect them for disposal and a couple had wriggled off the table onto the pavers and a jay swooped down and grabbed 1. As I was amazed how bold that jay was as were all the jays in the nearby tree watching and squawking loudly. Then a lizard ran up and grabbed the other 1 and took off with 2 more lizards chasing him down. There was a battle for possession of the hornworm, with the biggest lizard the victor. I put the remaining hornworms on the pavers and backed off a bit... then my gang of jays attacked the worms in about 2 seconds. After that day, haven't picked off even 1 hornworm and see very minimal hornworm damage on rare occasions...
 
  Anyhow, moral of the story is I might have unintentionally taught the jays to 'get the hornworms'. They seem to be a lot smarter then i knew, have incredible eyesight.
 
  Now to be fair, I've never seen a jay pick a worm off my plants, but they are on the containers frequently looking up under the plants. have seen them with hornworms in their beaks on the patio. The jays seem to be proud of the hornworm in their beak showing it off and creating fights for possession of the prize.
 
  So, just putting up a birdfeeder might give good results, or might not..? IDK.
 
jmo
 

 

 

[acs1]

Sometimes, they turn asshole and peck at the pods, though.  Cardinals are the worst in my yard about this.

 
Dang, hope they don't turn on me... so far not a single pecked pod in my garden.
 
Got Red Cardinals at the feeder every day. They seem to ignore the plants. The Cardinals and Mockingbirds do catch flying insects in flight on my patio. Moths seem to be a favorite, but have seen them with dragonfly also. They also keep it in their beak showing it off.
 
 Since in the almost 1 year since the birds have been around my garden and I've never had a bird eaten/pecked pepper, would assume they don't feed on peppers..? Maybe if they are pecking your pods they are actually grabbing insects off the pods and eating them..? Just a thought, could be all wrong IDK.
 
 So for me, birds have proven to be a useful part of my garden/patio, hope they are here to stay, probably as long as the feeder is full, lol.
 
Here's a pic my girl snapped of a Red Cardinal on the feeder and the female (brown)Red Cardinal on the pavers...
 
 

 

[solid7]

The cardinals in my yard don't every actually eat the pods, no.  They may be after pests, but they definitely peck at pods.  No big deal.  I already grow far more than I could ever reasonably use.  If I were the type that were bothered by this, I'd try to deal with it.  But I have a pretty healthy attitude about backyard balance.  I don't want to harm anything.  But I definitely want to keep it at bay.  The exception that I make is the rats.  They aren't the nasty NY subway rats - they're actually vegetarian rats - but if you don't keep them under control, they will definitely make your gardening life hell. (they will destroy plants 100%)

 

[acs1]

I agree about rodents, hate them.
 
Neighbors have had squirrels(tree rat with a bushy tail) chew thru fascia boards and get in the attic creating a nursery, chewing ducts/wiring/etc, lots of damage they can cause if left uncontrolled in large populations... I do not want any rodents around or in my home. Not even your vegan rats... lol  We have Norway roof rats and water rats here. The town we border on, and no more then a mile from my house,,, Boca Raton says it all...
 
My neighbors and I have the rodent population well under control here....

 

[solid7]

The roof rats are what I speak of.  Not the Norwegian variety.  Haven't encountered them yet.  They may be here.  Who knows.
.
Whether you know it or not, you also have the Gambian pouched rats in your neighborhood.  They aren't supposed to be in Florida, outside of the Florida Keys.  I have seen several of them in our neighborhood.  I've tried to trap them, but they are elusive.  They are the size of small cats, with a white tip on a very long tail.

 

[Siv]

I just lost a whole Aji Limo plant to a hornworm b@#$&%d. I patrol every other day and this one must have been hiding since he managed to eat he whole plant in a couple days. I have loads of geckos but I guess they don't go after hornworms. Maybe I need to find bigger lizards?
 
Anyway, I'm going on vacation for 3 weeks tomorrow so I may come home to twigs...

 

[solid7]

I just lost a whole Aji Limo plant to a hornworm b@#$&%d. I patrol every other day and this one must have been hiding since he managed to eat he whole plant in a couple days. I have loads of geckos but I guess they don't go after hornworms. Maybe I need to find bigger lizards?
 
Anyway, I'm going on vacation for 3 weeks tomorrow so I may come home to twigs...

 
I think the geckos that you (may have) there are too small to go after them.  Even the more common green anoles are probably not gonna mess with them.
.
Around here, you have to get some at least the size of a curly-tail before they'll go after them, and even then, they usually don't see them. (more ground dwellers, anyway)

 

[Sinn]

The roof rats are what I speak of.  Not the Norwegian variety.  Haven't encountered them yet.  They may be here.  Who knows.
.
Whether you know it or not, you also have the Gambian pouched rats in your neighborhood.  They aren't supposed to be in Florida, outside of the Florida Keys.  I have seen several of them in our neighborhood.  I've tried to trap them, but they are elusive.  They are the size of small cats, with a white tip on a very long tail.

We have rats the size of cats here damn nasty [emoji34] war on RATS!!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 

[solid7]

We have rats the size of cats here damn nasty [emoji34] war on RATS!!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 
Oh, believe me, I have seen those rats.  I'm in NYC 2-3 times per year.  I take the subway everywhere.  When the trains are delayed, or there's a lull between trains, you can hear them squeaking all over.  And they aren't shy about being seen...
.
Yours are the nastiest of the nasties...  Those NYC rats are the absolute worst. 

 

[Edmick]

I despise rats. They ate my entire corn crop last year

 

[acs1]

The roof rats are what I speak of.  Not the Norwegian variety.  Haven't encountered them yet.  They may be here.  Who knows.
.
Whether you know it or not, you also have the Gambian pouched rats in your neighborhood.  They aren't supposed to be in Florida, outside of the Florida Keys.  I have seen several of them in our neighborhood.  I've tried to trap them, but they are elusive.  They are the size of small cats, with a white tip on a very long tail.

We use to have the grey roof rats around my lake, but haven't seen/trapped/dispatched 1 in a couple years. My neighbors haven't seen any either...  I know that doesn't mean they aren't here. But the population is small enough they are in control and not a problem, for now.
 
The last of the grey roof rats I've seen around here ended up in my live trap.  We don't commonly see/catch/trap/dispatch grey roof rats often around here. But from my game cam in the garden had seen 1 last few nites(in 2017), so put out the trap on the nearby patio with a peanut butter dipped peanut on the trip bar. Went out to the garden early one chilly Feb morning and found this little rat in my trap.
  Picked up the trap and walked it around my house to the front driveway. Put trap down next to the back of the truck, opened my tailgate and put the trap/rat in the truck bed. Walked to the driver door, opened it, still standing outside truck inserted key and started truck. Heard an awful not normal noise and seemed like the 6.7PS Ford skipped a beat,,, hmmm unusual.  Walked into garage grabbed a cold water out of frig and turned to go back out to truck. As I was walking saw a grey lump of something under front of my truck, looked closer and it was a large grey bloodied 3/4 dead roof rat.
 
 Immediately thought crap,, the rat somehow got free and ended up in my serpentine belt/engine. So quickly looked in the bed. Nope, rat was still in the trap just like I left him. Figured the trapped rat must have been accompanied by a buddy/brother/mom that saw/followed me to the truck and decided the engine compartment would be a good place to hide till he got his buddy free. First time ever for a any animal in my engine compartment that I've known about...
 
 Suppose it could be coincidence I've got a trapped rat in my pu bed, and another rat hops in engine compartment, but probably not. These rodents are smart. Haven't seen 1 on the garden game cam since.
 
Oh, probably wondering where I was taking said rat. Well,, he was going down to the glades where he could play with the pythons/gators/etc.  There is my favorite drop off spot next to the water, a big oak bluff with commonly seen very large snake skins scattered around....
 
I hate rodents, our smaller rats here are bad enough,, glad we don't have massive NYC sewer rats, they sound nasty....
 
Ford 6.7ps diesel serpentine belt is still good as knew, not the rat.
 
 

 

[solid7]

I have trapped a lot of those little guys the very same way, and they almost always end up breaking their own necks in the wire mesh before I can deal with them.  So it makes dealing with them a lot easier.  And they said those were the "humane" traps.  I guess I should have laced the bait with a sedative...
.
Anyway, I just buy the large rat traps, and put a piece of banana on the trigger.  After you get the main troublemakers, the rest tend to get the picture.  I wonder what they tell each other, that seems to get the message out so effectively.  For sure, these fellas are a whole lot smarter than normal rats, because they're still in the yard. (the trees are alive with the sound of their scampering at night)  They just respect boundaries.  I can live with that.  I certainly don't require their total destruction, because all things have a place.

 

[acs1]

 
I think the geckos that you (may have) there are too small to go after them.  Even the more common green anoles are probably not gonna mess with them.
.
Around here, you have to get some at least the size of a curly-tail before they'll go after them, and even then, they usually don't see them. (more ground dwellers, anyway)

 
WTF..? Solid7 you gave me the kiss of death... Never had any aggressive Cuban Anoles around here.
 
 Nope never saw even 1. Till today. This guy is big, the pic is deceiving. His head reminds me of a large snake head, mouth got to be 2-2.5" across and his length at least 1-1.5' long. He was hiding in my hab when I went to water it this morning. Didn't see him as he was wrapped around the stem and matched the green foliage pretty good. Went to pull out some dead leafs and he jumped me, the fugger. Surprised me so much I dropped the water can and almost fell down... Thats the last thing I expected when looking for white flys/aphids/etc, and a huge big toothy mouth liz jumps out at me, damn.
 
 Those sukers got some big sharp teeth. Tried to chase him out with a wooden stake dowel maybe about 1/4" and he bit it in half... Snapped it like a twig. And held his ground. I watched him for a while. He almost caught a Red Cardinal by the leg that landed by him. Do they eat birds..? Will they damage my plants..?
 

 

[solid7]

Those aren't the anoles that I was referring to in Texas.  (the green ones I referred to are just like our green ones - same size as the brown ones)  The one you have referenced is the Cuban Knight Anole.
.
Something must have been wrong with the dowel you shook at it.  Their bite isn't that strong. I always acquaint myself with herps by feeling their bite. (venomous types, withstanding)
.
Look familiar?
.

 

[acs1]

Those aren't the anoles that I was referring to in Texas.  (the green ones I referred to are just like our green ones - same size as the brown ones)  The one you have referenced is the Cuban Night Anole.
.
Something must have been wrong with the dowel you shook at it.  Their bite isn't that strong. I always acquaint myself with herps by feeling their bite. (venomous types, withstanding)
.
Look familiar?
.

 
Yup, looks familiar,, except mine had no brown color, all green and it had huuge teeth. When it jumped out at me mouth open hissing could have sworn it had teeth like a great white...lol