Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I Noticed one of my newly planted Lettuce has a few small holes in their Leaves. I have planted Marigolds amongst everything to help with bugs so is there something natural I can use to spray the leaves to prevent further attack??

Can you work out what is eating it then you know what will either repel or kill it. Look under the leaves and in the crown where the new shoots come from, sometimes the bugs will hide there.
Holes in leaves could be slugs or snails or caterpillars.
Chilli and garlic spray is one form of spray or for caterpillars- Dipel

I have caterpillars attacking my cabbages. Problem is with all the rain we are getting at the moment in Perth every time I try to spray with dipel the rain keeps washing it away.

Rains good for knocking off eggs and small grubs. Just try and pick the larger ones and give them to the fish.

Danm things are too good at hiding. Fish have had a couple and go mad for them bit next morning more leaves eaten. Eventialy it will stop raining long enough to get the buggers.

This year, I hand picked some of the caterpillars and fend them to the fish but for the most part, I have not sprayed anything (well I think I sprayed Thuricide which is kinda like dipel early in the spring when my new basil was getting eaten) but otherwise I have largely ignored pests so far this year. I am looking to see what does well and what doesn't during different times of year here. Hopefully by ignoring the pests, I'll get a good batch of beneficial bugs to move in and help me out since I don't want to spray much of anything.

My biggest trouble with spraying anything is for 6 months out of the year, it is too hot and spraying the plants during daylight hours will cause them to burn. And 4 of those six months also tends to be rainy so spraying needs to be repeated too often which I hate doing at dusk when the mosquitoes are eating me alive since I don't like spraying bug spray on me either.

If you can confirm that what is eating your plants is caterpillars, then dipel dust might be a good choice for you though. Dipel and thuricide use a natural bacteria to give caterpillars a belly ach which will stop them from eating and they will eventually die. They have to eat some of it though to be effective, it does not act like a systemic pesticide within the plant. Good note about these treatments for caterpillars, they are not harmful to beneficial bugs the way some of the other natural sprays are.

Even garlic spray can be bad for bees so don't spray that while the bees are active and avoid spraying around the flowers.

Put the dipel dust in a salt / pepper shaker and dust the affected plants. Rain will dissolve the dipel and the caterpillars will be gone. They only need to be in contact with the dipel for a couple of hours.

I bought myself a 5 Litre Pump Spray and have been spraying the Pond Water on the Plants each morning and afternoon, so far seen nothing and no more holes

Thanks for that tip.