Re: [CH] plants coming indoors...
Doug Irvine (dougandmarie@shaw.ca)
Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:35:02 -0700
Hobby Farmer wrote:
> Tina Brooks wrote:
>
>> We use Melaleuca products and they (snip)
>> If anyone were familiar with that line of products,
>> maybe they could suggest the right one to use, that
>> wouldn't harm my plants???
Gotta agree with my old friend who farms sheep as a hobby! Still
remember, with fondness, the shot of his dear wife cuddling a new born
lamb! EVEN if I absolutely HATE the meat of that animal, due to my late
mother feeding me inedible MUTTON....YUK YUK! All of my young life. It
is such an aversion, that I cannot abide the smell of lamb cooking, I
throw up! However, back to Tea Tree Oil, which we have been using for
about six or seven years. It is an anti septic, and germicide. It does
not, to my knowledge, kill creepy crawlies, which alcohol certainly
does. Wood alcohol(methyl hydrate)
and ethanol, which does not kill humans, as does methanol, a fact bought
home to me very vividly when I was working at the University of Toronto,
and a co-worker decided to get plastered on ethanol and apple juice, and
somehow in his drunken stupor, managed to get into the methanol instead.
I found him, barely alive, got him to hospital, where they pumped his
stomach, and saved his life. I know that either alcohol kills bugs. I do
NOT know if Tea Tree Oil will do that, even though it will kill germs. A
bug, however has a different metabolism from a microbe, and I do not
think that it is as effective as plain old rubbing alcohol, which kills
both. Even if it does take a direct application to the bugs, it doesn't
seem to work the same as ethyl, methyl, or the compound rubbing alcohol,
which is isopropyl alcohol and water. Used judiciously, it will not harm
the plant, but will kill the bugs. Tea Tree Oil will kill the microbes,
and leave the bugs alone. Just the old guys two cents. Cheers, Doug in BC