Yay!
I love it when stuff works!

And I do dearly love leaves.

Isn't it ironic that we're re-discovering the ways our grandparents & great-grandparents did things?

Isn't it wonderful that we are able to re-discover those ways?

Organic gardening is so very rewarding. If you haven't already,get yourself a book to identify benefical insects and their larva stage.I quickly learned that a small green wormy looking thing on my rose last year was a hoover fly larva and it LOVES to eat aphids.After that I tried to learn about the various stages of these "do good" bugs.I really saw a fascinating lesson in the chain of life when I witnessed a swarm of termites leaving my compost pile. As I got closer I could see my favorite green lizard eating them up,10 dragon flies were buzzing around eating them in mid-air while the brown ants were dragging the wingless ones away off the ground.I always try to go the least toxic way so this chain can continue in my garden.Enjoy! Tamara

I got another kick out of it yesterday, when I sprayed a huge bush invested with whiteflies. I used the hose end sprayer with murphy's oil soap and dishsoap (do I really need dishsoap when using murphy's???). When I accidentely hit the house I realized that it won't harm anything, so I aimed at it on purpose and washed some dirt off while I was at it. Try that with pestizide. It is awesome to see that you can use something so simple and it works. And it makes me feel really good to know that even if I accidentely spray on me, it won't harm me. May wash some dirt off, too :-)

Soap sprays are indiscriminate killers and will kill all of your beneficial bugs as well as the bad ones. Oil sprays are the same. Bye bye ladybugs and preying mantises. A plain sharp stream of water is sufficient for washing off aphids, and it won't harm the beneficials.

I disagree. A simple sharp stream of water will not wash off any whiteflies. They fly up in the air and sit right back down as soon as you stop. Would be nice, though.

I didn't claim it would work on whiteflies, just aphids, which is the pest your first post describes. Whiteflies can be handled by horticultural oil or soap sprays, but at the expense of your beneficials that are munching on them.

Our roses have not had black spot for a while, but the grapevine had powdery mildew, which was healed by spraying milk on the leaves. The article I found (I don't remember where) said that milk would also work with black spot. And you don't need to add soap.