Some of the OLD (like me) insect controls were:
1. picking them off and squashing
2. Hot pepper - chop and simmer in water, then drain off the liquid and spray. (I have a big bag in the freezer - all the left over HOT peppers from the garden last year - will be using them this summer)
3. Tobacco - either as juice mixed with water and sprayed like the peppers or as dust. The dust also works to control fleas, ticks, mites in chicken dust holes as well as in bedding for dogs.
4. Good old fashioned lye soap mixed in water and sprayed.
5. Mineral or Cod Oil - a drop on the corn silk weekly keeps the earworms out
6. Chickens - they are voracious bug eaters - they will run headlong into a wall chasing a grasshopper or other bug. Just be sure to fence them out of the rest of your garden or you will find that they love all types of vegetables. If you have a portable fence, they will glean the spoil from the garden, eat the grass and scratch up and eat every kind of bug - including ticks.
They all work and targeting to a specific pest works best. Just don’t use the tobacco juice on the lettuce you are planning to have for dinner tonight - should be about a week with a shower in between spraying it and eating or it makes it bitter.
Ewww! LOL.
I've been thinking about the chicken idea. We're rural and that's doable, plus I could get eggs as a bonus. I'm going to read up on keeping egg laying hens. Thanks.