See below for everything I know about everything that crawls in my garden.

I don’t like bugs. I don’t like them hanging out in my soil and near my plants and flying around my porch. The bugs were a bigger problem when I was trying to keep my garden alive INSIDE all winter, but they’re still a pest (lol) when I want to look at my pretty plants and flowers.

The basis of my garden is organic soil, herbs, and plants. I tried to find “organic” solutions to all the bugs problems and through my various trial and error attempts am happy to share what I learned.

Even if something is labeled organic, it still may have weird ingredients* that you wouldn’t want to ingest.
Bugs like moist soil. If you’re watering your plants I think some bugs are inevitable.
You need to balance risk vs. reward. Some insecticides work really well but then you sacrifice labeling your garden as organic or insecticide-free.

*See further reading below

**What worked best for me**

sticky fly traps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No chemicals (other than probably glue, and who hasn’t tried a little glue before…?) These cheap little things are so satisfying to watch at work because you can literally see the flies get stuck to them. I don’t think it’s sad. Flies are gross. But, my garden now has a lil fly graveyard which is not the nicest thing to look at.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

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WHAT DIDN'T WORK !!!

This is just my opinion but nothing that I sprayed in the garden really worked. I think the Arbor organic insecticide was the easiest on the plants. Spraying Neem oil made me want to vomit (the smell is awful) and 70% isopropyl alcohol seemed too harsh on my lil babies. Sprinkling cinnamon felt very earthy and organic, but I can’t really tell if it did anything. I think it’s an antifungal so at minimum it helped the plant roots stay healthy.