"Natural" remedies - the correct way to go, or a waste of time?

Following on from the recent article about Plum Rust, I was asked about what products to use, when doing the spring spray.  It's a good question, and relates not just to fruit trees, but to many garden plants which suffer from fungal infections.

This one - left - is Hellebore Black Spot, another fungal infection, although in this case it's less "black spot" and more "black leaf", as you can see! 

Anyway, getting back to preventative measures:

Specifically, the question was:  "would it be possible to use a natural spray at blossom time in spring / early summer e.g. Garlic Spray in the correct ratio garlic juice to cold or warm water or indeed diluted apple cider vinegar or Neem leaf diluted spray which all have antifungal as well as other medicinal properties?"

Of course it would be possible - you can spray with anything you like! Apart from glyphosate, or other weedkillers, of course... but the question really was, will these natural remedies do any good?

Now, I am fully prepared to be shot down in flames for this, in fact, I might even turn off comments for this article (*laughs*) but after nearly 20 years of observing "natural" and "home-made" and "organic" and "eco-friendly" remedies, I would say that most of them simply don't work.

What sort of "natural sprays" are we talking about?  Garlic, apple cider vinegar, baking soda, ordinary vinegar, cornmeal, cinnamon oil, hot peppers, chili peppers, ordinary salt-and-pepper pepper - all of these and more are, you will find from a cursory internet search, being recommended as the perfect answer for whatever ails your garden or allotment, if you don't want to use chemical sprays.

The questioner (*waves* "Hi, Michele!")  mentions dilution, and the "correct ratio" but the problem with all these home remedies is that no-one knows what the "correct ratio" actually is, because none of these are regulated products, and none of them have gone through scientific testing. 

So there's the first problem: no-one knows what the correct dilution actually is. 

Next, we have to consider what "natural products" we are told to use, and what proportion or strength or quantity of the active constituent - whatever that might be, the internet rarely specifies - it contains.  Any random clove of garlic/chili pepper/etc which you buy or grow will have a different "strength" to any other random clove of garlic/chili pepper/etc, and it's impossible to gauge this, so even if you knew what the "correct" dilution rate ought to be, how can you relate that to your random, unknown-strength, clove of garlic? 

For that matter, any pack of baking soda/vinegar etc may well have a different concentration from any other brand or pack of the same product, and the concentration won't be listed on the pack, because you are using something for a purpose for which it is not intended, so they won't feel the need to tell you how much of the relevant ingredient it contains - assuming that you know which chemical is the one you need, of course.

So that's the second issue: you don't know how "strong" the clove of garlic in your hand actually is. And that's assuming that garlic - or whatever it is - actually does any good.

And now here's the third point, the common-sense one:  if these home remedies actually worked, don't you think that commercial crop growers would have tossed aside the expensive chemical products, and leapt on these easily-available, grow-your-own, cheap,  remedies? Don't you think they would like to avoid the whole business with the hazardous chemicals, PPE for workers, safe storage and disposal, coping with complaints from the organic movement, resistance, both from the plants, and from the organic movement (*laughs*) (well, I thought it was funny...) and so on?

And yet they don't. Doesn't this say something about "natural" remedies? They are what you might call a bit hit and miss.

In fact, I honestly believe that when people claim that something like this has worked for them, it's a one-off, lucky-for-them, low-pest/disease year, and quite coincidental: and has more to do with the way pests and diseases come in cycles, dependant on a very complex interaction of weather conditions, prey and predator numbers which affect spreading vectors (some infections are spread by insects) and other factors. 

In my opinion - and experience - it's also entirely feasible that when someone realises they have a problem in their garden, they get out the garlic spray, but they also attend to garden hygiene, by picking off/up diseased leaves, correct pruning, burning rather than composting of diseased material: they feed and water the plants concerned, to get them as strong and healthy as possible;  and they are probably on high alert very early in the year, having suffered the previous year, which means that they are far more likely to spot an infestation or infection as soon as it appears, and will deal with it promptly, thus preventing the spread.

And then they say "Ah, it was all to do with my home-made remedy, I shall tell everyone on the internet about the wonders of crushed moth balls mixed with aniseed" and, as is the way with the internet, their text gets cut-and-pasted into any number of other websites, until it becomes as "authentic" as anything else on the internet.

I do get this myself, by the way: the number of times I've spotted my own hand-written (if you see what I mean) text appearing on other people's websites, is hilarious! No, I don't get all upset about it - imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, as we all know: plus, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, so there's no point crying and wailing. OK, it's a bit of a shame that I don't get a credit for it, or a link back here, but hey, it's the internet, and anyone creating original content has to accept that someone, somewhere, will steal it. Moving on...

So where does this all leave us, with our trees covered in pests and diseases?

My answer: If you "need" the crop, if you are relying on it to feed you, then use a proper, bought-in, chemical, spray.  If you don't "need" it, ie you just grow fruit for fun, or because it's nice, or because you enjoy being able to pick your own now and again, then put up with losing some of your crop to bugs, pests and diseases (who do, also, have to eat/live), and maybe just check your plants early in the season, keep them well fed and well watered, keep on top of your garden hygiene, and who knows, you might see a mysterious improvement in them, without having to resort to any sort of spray, natural or otherwise!

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