Last night in class we looked at "cides" - Insecticides, 
Herbicides and Fungicides. I am, in general, against using toxins 
in the garden, so I was pleased to learn that we'd be looking at 
both Organic and Inorganic methods.
We learned that generally speaking, cides can be classifed as:-
    Contact - kill only on immediate contact with the pest.
    Residual - retained their power for about two weeks.
    Systemic - taken in and retained by the plant.
I would shy away from Systemic, as I don't want my compost to be 
harbouring slabs of poison as plants are decomposing. On the 
other hand, I do know of a couple of good uses for systemic 
poisons (see "ants" below)
Residual sounds good. I like the idea of being able to kill off 
whatever pest it is that bothers me, and not be leaving a legacy 
of killing for generations of living creatures. I'm particularly 
enamoured of a cide that breaks down into smaller and harmless 
molecular compounds after a fixed period.
Systemic ingredients tend towards Dicofol and Dimethone. These 
ingredients should be avoided if you don't want poison in your 
vegetable matter. 
Residual ingredients include Malathion and Chlorpyrofos. I should 
prefer these types of cide.
Contact ingredients are Diazon and Carbaryl.
We learned a bit about natural toxins. Pyrethin Daisies and 
Marigolds are apparently excellent companion plants, as is Garlic 
with its high sulphur content (sulphur is a fungicide).
Nematodes, I learned, are *not* like that idiot who signed on to 
our local BBS and blasted the sysop, but are cute little wormy 
things. White grubs eat nematodes, then swell up and die. You can 
buy nematodes in a can in a pate form under names like "BioSafe" 
and "MicroKill". Apparently it wouldn't do my indoor compost 
material any harm if I were to add this pate in a solution to my 
soil. Repopulating the soil with animicules after bake-
sterilising it, so to speak.
As an alternative, I could blend a residual pesticide into the 
compost soil and let it stand 6-8 weeks to degrade after killing 
off the worm re-population from eggs, and then make use of the 
pest-free soil.
You can see that I'm torn between the beneficial effect of the 
red wriggler worms in the preparation of compost, and the 
apparently stunting effect of them nibbling at cuttings, and 
maybe fresh roots. 
Sulphur based compounds, such as Lime Sulphur or Copper Sulphate 
make good fungicides, we were told. Also that garden fungicides 
could be sprayed around the bath and shower recess.
What else?
Diatomaceous Earth, very finely ground SiO2 sand, gets rid of 
exo-skeletal creatures, such as ants and snails. The silica 
ruptures the exoskeleton and "all the guts spill out". Turns out 
that our instructor is a really *nasty* little man (vbg!)
Ants: we used to use a red syrupy compound of very high toxity in 
Western Australia. It seems that the ants eat it, carry it back 
to the nest in their bodies, die, and are then cannibalised, 
continuing the toxic chain. I think I have previously posted 
"coffee grounds" as an alternative - ants work themselves to 
exhaustive death from the caffeine. 
Beer-in-a-jar has been known to tempt slugs and snails to an 
early death. Also a couple of friends of mine  :(
Christopher.Greaves@CapCanada.Com    www.interlog.com/~cgreaves
 * 1st 2.00b #6263 * Don't Brake!
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