hydrogen peroxide and thuricide aka BT (bacillus thuringiensis)

[jdlondon]

I've been watching endless youtube and came across the use of hydrogen peroxide as well as BT, as a spray for leafy veg, especially cabbage. Charles Dowding used that BT one too.

Since most of my tastes lie in leafy veg, I was wondering if they were as good an idea as it seemed. I can get them on Amazon easily enough, and it did seem as if they kept away a lot of bugs in quite a non-poisonous way - for humans and other wildlife, that is.

The one niggle was that the peroxide took out the good bacteria in the soil as well as the bad, but if I only used it as a light foliar spray? Would that be fine?

My only experience with pesticides have been the ones I've made - ie a combi of chilli, garlic, soap and oil - so I'm feeling a bit tentative. But graduating from a small balcony garden to a pretty big ground one has brought on much more pests and a wider area to cover, so I'm looking into more means of control.

Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

[Penellype]

Hydrogen Peroxide is a usually available in dilute solutions as a bleach, often used for bleaching hair. It is toxic to cells, so more concentrated solutions are not particularly nice. It can also be used as a disinfectant. If your solution is strong enough to kill unwanted pests or bacteria it will probably also kill the beneficial ones. It may not do the plants much good either. Just my opinion - I have not heard of it being used on plants before.

Detailed info on Hydrogen Peroxide here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide

[rary]

Do you really need to spray your veg with chemicals if it kills off good as well as bad I pesonaly would avoid using it unless you are absolutely desperate if I need to spray I use a garlic solution with a squirt of non bio washing up liquid added to it I also use micromesh to cover my veg I did make my own nematode solution for slugs but I have stopped that now

[ameno]

I can't imagine hydrogen peroxide would be effective against any pest larger than an aphid, and possibly not even them. If you're diluting it enough that it won't harm the plants themselves then you're also diluting it enough that it won't harm most insects.