For most garden produce, the prevalent disease where I live is usually fungal. It may be different in an arid climate.
Last week, I had a few tomato plants that hadn’t been planted. They had been through a week of rainy weather, crowded into a small area. They developed leaf spot. I went here: http://www.ghorganics.com/page15.html and tried the vinegar/water spray they suggested. It worked.
If we get a week of rain at the wrong time, blossom end rot will attack the tomatoes. So, I keep a large spray bottle of Rot Stop around. I don’t always have time to run into town to get what I might need.
I think most gardeners are not planting row crops. Likely everyone has a roto-tiller or a cultivator. I have a antique cultivator that is good for going between sweet corn rows, but most gardens are weeded by hand, especially if they are mulched. And of course our gardens are harvested by hand. Even the commercial medium-sized($1.5M) organic vegetable operations hand harvest. I am pretty certain the really large vegetable farms do, as well. We have migrant labor around here and the fields are contracted to Libby or Green Giant, et al. Corn and beans are mechanically harvested, of course.
As for mites and other insects, I haven’t tried these, but I will if I have to: http://www.ghorganics.com/page9.html
I do keep pyrethrins (sp?) around, though. I have taken out aphids on indoor plants with soapy water and a forceful spray, but the little buggers can fly, so insecticide is useful if you don’t have Chinese Lady Beetles, which we do, at least outside.
We have the Foxfire books. They are interesting and helpful.
Thomas Sherry, a disaster emergency specialist, has written a couple of fascinating books positing an earthquake in the Spokane area. He covers a lot of organizing and improvising in the context of the novel that is very educational.
I think preppers should be encouraged. It takes years of trial and error and study to become even minimally self-sufficient, so the sooner people begin, the better. In my area, people are beginning to collate lists of people with skills. It helps everyone and the local economy. It also makes everyone become aware that they will need _something_ with which to trade. If some folks have money or precious metals, that’s great for the skilled people who will need that for taxes and medicine and energy.
People are frightened. I am hearing this fear from wealthy professionals who are beginning to doubt if money will help them survive. I know successful business people who are learning how to can. Every anecdotal tale of hardship and collapse I have read included someone saying they should have stored twice the amount of food that they did, as well as diversify into other currencies or precious metals. An extra pair of good boots or a warm coat or some propane stashed away against the time when every penny is needed to keep warm or buy gas to get to work is simply prudent in a collapsing economy. No one is confident in anything and none of us can control anything except ourselves.
I’ve had bugs eating the broccoli and cauliflower but taking my thumb and forefinger to them has solved the problem. Squish!
I absolutely agree that preppers should be encouraged.
The thing I’d encourage the most is knowledge. Buying pesticides doesn’t make one a competent gardener or farmer any more than buying a gun makes someone competent in a firefight. Sure, they might be prerequisites, but if having only the tool elevated one to competency, then we’d see a LOT more progress in the third world when we give them modern ag implements and technologies. Instead, we see... more of the same nonsense, only on a bigger scale.
BTW - your experience with vinegar is absolutely true. I saw research 10+ years ago using a 20% solution of glacial acetic acid in water, applied topically to plants. It is like a flamethrower. At the time, the researchers were looking for a replacement for the herbicide Grammoxone(r) which is also known to hippies everywhere as Paraquat, the herbicide we used in South America to spoil a whole lot of dope fields. Grammoxone is great stuff... for those who know how to handle it. Because there is no antidote for anyone who might ingest it, it is a restricted product, requiring an applicator’s license to even buy it. Acetic acid does the job just as well, without the need for any licensing.
I just know that there’s a whole lot of people who think that buying the right “widget” will suddenly make them Uber-prepper. It won’t. I know because I learned this the hard way. Having lived out in some of the least populated area left in the lower 48, where we were 120 miles to the nearest hospital or really well stocked hardware store, we became quite inventive after nine years. The result of the experience is that I now realize that having the right tools, raw materials and experience can make people unstoppable - utterly impervious to government nonsense. But the key is the knowledge, then knowing what minimum raw materials and tooling you’d need if things really got rough.
eg, the ballistic vest? What nonsense. By the time you’re strapping that on, things have gotten way, way, way out of hand, and you need to be asking the question “WTF am I still doing in this particular place at this particular time?” Because having a vest will in no way be as smart as simply not being where a vest is necessary. For the expense of a vest, I’d rather see someone own a small, general purpose welding rig or oxy-acetylene rig, with their own bottles.
From my perspective, I’m a tool slut. I hate having to think about the situation of “I have X, but it is broken and now, I don’t know who could fix that.” BS on that, I want to be able to fix most anything myself. Further, for the investment in a small welding rig and small lathe and some knowledge, most homeowners and DIY’ers could make most any small tools that they need. With oxy-acetylene rigs, one can cut steel, weld steel, and (most importantly) harden steel in tools.
Becoming self sufficient is great... until folks realize that without some basic knowledge, they’re quickly going back to pre-Bronze-age technology without the ability to buy tools. Suddenly, folks without this knowledge aren’t quite as self-sufficient as they’d like to think.
ps — pyrethrins are a great class of products, just don’t use them again and again and again without cycling into some other pesticide, like an OP, sulphur, beneficial insect/mite/etc. Insects can adapt to pyrethrins relatively quickly. Everyone should learn a thing or two about “Integrated Pest Management” so they don’t get on the chemical treadmill inadvertently.