Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew
Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew should be your go-to when pests start to keep you from enjoying the bounty of your garden. It kills bagworms, moths, and caterpillars while having a negligible effect on beneficial insects that live in the soil, such as worms and nematodes.
Cabbage moths are a gardener’s worst enemy where I live in central Ohio. You simply can’t grow bok choy, cabbage, or most other brassicas here without using either floating row covers or chemical control for insects unless you want your plants to look like someone took a shotgun to their leaves. As a market gardener, I can’t sell produce that looks like that.
I count on this product every year to keep moths and caterpillars from decimating my cool season crops before they move on to their mission of skeletonizing the leaves on my Asian eggplants. While I have never had problems with tomato hornworms in my garden, this is what I would turn to if they started causing enough damage. Japanese beetles are worse some years than others, but I occasionally use this to keep them from chowing down on my raspberries. If you can get to them before they slip inside the vine, this brew is effective on squash vine borers as well.
The active ingredient in Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew is a naturally occurring bacteria called Spinosad, a leading pesticide approved around the world for organic growing operations. You can even use it inside on your house plants to kill aphids and mites, as it’s non-toxic.
I have been able to save branches of trees infested with caterpillar bagworms using this product if I notice them fast enough. Even if you don’t have a garden, it would still be a good idea to keep some Captain Jack’s on hand for the shrubs and bushes around your house. While you can always replace a plant destroyed by bagworms, it will take several years for it to grow to match the size and shape of the others.
I always buy chemicals in their concentrated form when possible. First, I don’t like paying for water. Second, the product takes up less storage space and sends less plastic waste to the landfill. Third, I like being able to adjust the dilution of the product depending on the specific application. Last, some chemicals start to lose their efficacy once they are mixed with water.
A 16 oz. bottle of concentrate should last the typical gardener at least a couple of years. For those with larger gardens or heavier pest pressure, this 32 oz. bottle is available on Amazon for not much more the smaller bottle. Time doesn’t appear to decrease the effectiveness of this product, however you should protect it from freezing if you plan on keeping it in a shed or other uninsulated space, as extremely cold temperatures can kill the bacteria which is the active ingredient, thereby rendering it useless.