I don’t know how you feel about pesticides/insecticides, but, frankly, they scare me.

All those chemicals, and how they do/will they affect my health, and nature’s.

I just don’t use them.

In my garden walkabouts, I spy a few Japanese beetles.

I pick them off and behead them, flicking their bodies to the ground.

You know one must have “bad” bugs to feed/keep the “good” bugs, plus all those birds and other nature must feast/dine, too.

One time – a couple years ago now – I spied a crowd of sparrows feasting on Japanese beetles that were holding a banquet on my crabapple “Royalty,” what a spread.

I watched as the sparrows greedily frolicked and “snacked” on the foul varmints.

They must have cleaned them up because after a while they just sat and perused the garden.

And if one did want to spray a few bugs in the garden, do you know one bug from another by sight? Is it friend or foe?

Well, say one has a few hundred aphids feasting on one’s roses, what should you do?

Well, if you were me, I’d grab the water hose.

Yes, the hose, and spray them the heck off the foliage.

If one was tempted/frightened, one might reach for a can of bug spray.

But wait. There is a safer, more frugal solution, and it is as close as one’s garden hose.

Researchers at Texas A&M University have been able to spray away and dislodge up to 70 to 90 percent of the aphid infestation by simply spraying water at them and flushing them off a plant’s foliage.

This blast of water dislodges/flushes away spider mites and thrips, too.

One doesn’t need any special-type of hose nozzle or sprayer.

Just make sure to spray both the tops and undersides of the leaves.

Here’s how it works. Water is as effective as most other sprays against aphids because their bodies are delicate.

The force of a stiff spray of water knocks aphids off a plant’s foliage, killing and injuring many of them.

A flush of water kills mostly by doing physical damage to the insects and, unlike chemical sprays, pests cannot develop any resistance to it.

Using a strong flush of water powerful enough to wash them to kingdom come, yet one does not want to damage any of the plant foliage, either.

Repeat water sprays as often as necessary to keep the villains under control.

The best part of this is it’s simple, prudent and a non-toxic control method.

•••
The simplest method of all is to pick the pest and squash it.
— William H. Jordan Jr.

Nancy Wiersma of Dowagiac writes a weekly column.