Science Forums 2

[maikeru]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Try a leaf spray of sea weed fertiliser and keep the water up to the plants. whitefly usually attack water stressed plants.

I'd like to, but much past experience and frustration with whiteflies tells me I probably won't win the battle. They adapt too quickly and reproduce every 24 hours. I can't exterminate them all, and they'll reach plague proportions. Too many plants and too many bushy, overgrown ones at that! I'm going to harvest everything that I can, wash and freeze them, and then restart. I'll clean up the room, remove infected supermarket plants, and let the room sit idle for a bit. Not so different from what I used to do in the lab when our tissue culture flasks got contaminated. And this time, I'll keep any plant which hasn't been grown by my hand out of the room. No exceptions even for family members.

Thats cheating!
Environmentally it may use too much energy?
Here, activated charcoal for Hort. use (Barmac's "Pick Up") is $150 for about 5K !!
The supermarket sells 3.5K of BBQ charcoal ("Redhead") for AUD$7. It is made from coconuts, I think, comes from Malaysia, and is easy to break up with a brick.

Best Energies can make low quality activated charcoal at about 500C by adding water and air to the pyrolysis mix. Stephen Joseph says it does hold more water in the soil/potting mix.
Herbs don't always need lots of water especially Mediterranean ones like rosemary, thyme, lavender etc

Yeah, I have some environmental concerns, but I also need to be practical. Unless I hold BBQs every week or get a burn permit so that I can create charcoal, I have to resort to smashing lump wood charcoal, which is the cheapest and best stuff I've found so far. Everything else is Kingsford or some other company coal charcoal (which may have heavy metals, etc.). I've looked into acquiring coconut charcoal, and it seems to be considered a "specialty" or "gourmet" charcoal here for BBQing and is more costly than lump wood.

My neighbors think I'm a weirdo when they've seen me crushing charcoal outside. I'm already a bit loopy, so I don't need to give them any more ideas. Anyway, I plan to put my homemade stuff into holes for new fruit trees and bushes in the backyard. I hope I've done some good in making that, at least.

I have most of the materials (seaweed, bonemeal, eggshells, coffee grounds, potting soil, etc.) on hand for new terra preta except powdered charcoal. Really, I need to make some more. I have several containers of spent coffee grounds from indulging in my bad habit the last few weeks!