Tips for Getting Rid of Garden Pests
Gardening is a lot of work. It takes hours and hours of toiling away to make sure that your plants have a healthy environment to grow in, followed by months of vigilant maintenance to ensure they have proper amounts of water, soil, and sunlight. It’s because of this work that it can be so infuriating and disheartening to go out and see that your plants are being decimated by harmful garden pests.
However, don’t lose heart yet. Even if an aphid infestation is getting into your garden, there are lots of ways that you can drive them out and save the fruits (and veggies) of your labor.
Here are some tips on how to get rid of garden pests…
Use Predator Bugs
While some bugs are harmful to your garden, there are lots of bugs that are necessary to keep your plants happy and functioning.
Bees, for example, play an important role in pollination. Similarly, there are plenty of bugs that are nice to have around solely because they keep the bad ones out.
Ladybugs, spiders, praying mantises, ground beetles, ants, earwigs, and centipedes are all predator bugs that will eat the pests that want to chow down on everything in your garden.
You can purchase specific predator bugs at gardening supply stores, such as ladybugs. You can buy 1,500 living ladybugs for less than $10!
Make Sure Your Soil Is Healthy
Your plants will be able to hold their own against pests a lot easier if they have healthy soil as a strong foundation.
If your soil is mediocre, then your plants are far more likely to fail to recover from an insect attack.
This means using a healthy amount of compost and mulch as recommended for the plants you are growing.
It also means using a cover crop over the soil in the offseason to make it more fertile.
If you’re new to gardening and have soil questions, check out this blog post for gardening beginners here.
Keep an Eye on Things
When you start gardening, you may start to panic when you see any insect pests. However, you shouldn’t be.
It’s perfectly fine and natural for some pests to show up in your garden. It would be far stranger if they weren’t.
What you need to keep a look out for is if too many are starting to show up and it is becoming a problem.
As such, once a week, or even whenever you water your garden, you should be checking the leaves for pest damage.
Make sure you check on top and underneath the leaves, as many pests will stay in the shade as they feast on your crops.
Use Pest Control Products
If you have a large garden and have a considerable amount of pest damage that is occurring, then it might be worth it to get some heavy-duty pest control products to help you eliminate large populations of pests.
One great option to do this is PureCrop1, which is an excellent, non-hazardous pest control concentrate that is perfect for getting rid of aphids, mites, gnats, caterpillars, beetles, and other types of insects.
Plant Pest-Repelling Plants
Similarly to predator insects that will eat the bad insects, you can grow specific flowers and plants that will repel specific insects and help your garden defend itself.
For example, petunias will be helpful in repelling aphids, hornworms, and leafhoppers. Dill and fennel are also great for getting rid of aphids and snails.
Chrysanthemums, chives, thyme, lemongrass, lavender, and marigolds are also excellent options to repel pests.
Growing a combination of these plants will go a long way to reducing pest damage, although it may not prevent it entirely.
Try Homemade Pest Repellants
If you want to try a pest control product, but are nervous about using industrial chemical-based ones (even if they are non-hazardous), then try using specific spices or kitchen staples to repel or eliminate pests.
Seeping and boiling some garlic in water can create a spray that will repel a wide variety of harmful insects.
Leaving orange peels in your garden can help kill aphids, due to the acidity (same with apple cider vinegar).
There’s no guarantee that these will completely get rid of pests, but they can help.
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