Organic Garden Guide to Managing Garden Pests

Garden pests came destroy even the best kept gardens

While caring for my garden plot, I have discovered that one of the frustrating things that might happen to the gardener is to walk outside to check on your crops. It may be merely a routine stroll to ensure that the garden is thriving, except you find yourself spotting holes in all your plants that appeared in good health just hours before!

The explanations for some of these crop-damaging blemishes are garden pests. A few of the major backyard pests are slugs, worms, caterpillars, birds, snails, and also the occasional gopher. Even though one could most likely not get rid of these pests entirely, there are certainly strategies which can help any garden thrive more fruitfully, without adding unsafe chemical substances to your soil, air, or food.

Insect pests are said to be the worst things to have in your garden; they may reside under the soil, in old unwanted weeds and heaps of dead vegetation, or in plenty of other areas. In order to help keep pests out, always attempt to eliminate spots within your garden area and also close to the garden where these insects and also crop disease may be living. Take away old vegetation, unwanted weeds, or any decomposing stuff which bugs and diseases may be living from the garden. (A properly tended compost heap could be acceptable, although it would still be sensible to maintain this beyond the primary gardening zone.) Also, you might want to frequently turn over your garden soil and crush apart any clumps of soil in an attempt to get rid of the dwelling spaces of certain insects that may be hiding underground (hoeing the plot to get rid of weeds during the summer will also accomplish this).

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There are specific aids to keeping pests defeated. The continual stirring of the earth by means of earthworms can be an aid in keeping the topsoil exposed to air and water. Many of our ordinary birds nosh upon insects. Sparrows, robins, chickadees, meadow larks and orioles are all types of birds that assist in this manner. Certain insects prey on other damaging insects. Certain varieties of ladybugs do that beneficial deed. The ichneumon-fly helps too. Furthermore toads are amazing in the number of bugs they may eat at one single meal. The toad should receive exceptionally nice treatment from all of us.

Each gardener should endeavor to build his or her garden plot into a place appealing to birds as well as toads. The right birdhouse, seeds sprinkled around in the first part of spring, as well as a water bath, can be invitations for birds to spend some time in your garden (observe on the other hand, that some types of birds may pose problems, particularly if you’re cultivating berries or even other fruit — see below for more info on birds). If you wish to appeal to toads, you possibly can make things better on their behalf as well. For the duration of a sweltering summer day a toad likes to rest in the shade. By dark he is able to set out to eat (though not to kill, seeing as toads favor live food). How may you “fix up” for toads? One thing you can try is set up a silent, dark, damp retreat. A few rocks of some size under the shadow of a bush, in addition to possibly a covering of moist leaves, would appear exceptionally pleasant to a toad.

There are two general types of insects that may cause problems in your garden patch. One sort gnaws at the plant and actually devours pieces of it. This kind of insect carries a mouth designed to do this work. Grasshoppers and also caterpillars are of this class. The other kind sucks the juices from the plant. Plant lice go here (imagine something similar to a mosquito, except they go after plants as opposed to humans). The ones we catch sight of are often green in color. Or they might be red, yellow or brown. Lice can be easy enough to locate given that they are always clinging to their host plant. Being sucking insects they have to stick near to a plant for food, and it can be quicker to discover these. However the chewing insects carry out their work, and then go hide, which makes them much more complicated to deal with.

The question you will want to ask yourself is, ‘How can I tell which pest is doing the harmful work?’ Well, you can know to a certain extent by the damage left behind from the insect, and also partly by discovering the pest itself. The latter thing isn’t always very easy to achieve. For example, you may have cutworms, and not even catch a glimpse of them. Nevertheless, you can see what continues to be done to your garden. If stalks of tender plants are severed clean off, you may be fairly certain that a cutworm is abroad. What will he appear like? Well, that may be a hard question as his family is known to be a large one. Should you witness a grayish stripy caterpillar hiding in the dirt, chances are you’ll realize it is often a cutworm. But owing to its preference of resting in the ground throughout the day and working by nighttime, it is difficult to catch sight of them. (Keep your eye out|Keep a lookout} for the second segment of this article, when I will discuss how to deal with the cutworm, as well as other methods of organic pest management.)

Another pest issue you could have in addition to bugs could be birds. For people with miniature fruiting bushes, you could possibly shelter these by means of bird netting, which may help. One more solution which may help to keep the birds away from your garden plot is to place a bird feeder in the vicinity — out of the garden plot, but reasonably adjacent. Rather than costing you time and money by eating your garden, the birds can eat at the bird feeder. Even though it might not entirely get rid of the bird problem, it could help the problem. Getting a dog can also help!

If you start seeing mounds of soil around your yard, plus your plants start inexplicably failing (or maybe vanishing entirely!), you can suppose that you have a gopher problem.

This tends to depend on the region where you are located, as some areas are more prone to gopher invasion than the rest. Gophers are rodents that are five to 14 inches long. Their fur might be black, light brown, or white, and they’ve got small tails. One approach to removing these root-devouring vermin is to set traps. The key to effectively capturing a gopher in a trap is usually to successfully find the gopher’s tunnels and then set the trap correctly. A different way to get rid of gophers is to try smoke bombs, which you place into the tunnel entrance and then the smoke spreads through it and with a bit of luck finds the gopher.

If you think your gardens may be being damaged by some of the pests I discussed, I would urge you to try your hardest to eradicate the problem as soon as possible. The more time you allow the creatures hang about, the more established it will grow to be.

While tending to my own garden patch, I have discovered that one of the most aggravating things which can happen to a gardener can be to walk out into the yard to look at the plants, and find your garden is being eaten by pests!

For further strategies and info on sustainable gardening, and recommended resources for natural pest control, please go to www.newholisticliving.com/sustainablegardening.html, and subscribe to our FREE weekly sustainable gardening newsletter!

By: Rose Hillbrand