Dealing With Pests In An Organic Garden

Organic gardeners face their biggest problem – dealing with pests. Absolutely devastating to a garden is an infestation of cutworms or aphids. An entire row of plants can be wiped out in days or maybe even hours.

Rather than just treating them once they occur, it’s more important to try to prevent infestations. You can do this by spraying your plants with solutions that deter many of the most common garden pests.

There are many organic solutions available, but you can make your own by using recipes that can be found in most organic gardening books. Most of them are similar to tea and made of garlic and hot pepper.

Planting species native to the are in which you live is also something you can do. Natural immunity to common diseases in the area is what these plants will have. Unlike other varieties, pest-resistant plants won’t have many problems with pests.

You may be able to avoid the worst part of the bug season if you plant early enough. Insects will be active and eat your plants for a short period of time each year. If you plant early, you may be able to harvest before those insects terrorize your plants.

You should do everything you can to encourage natural insect predators like ladybugs, praying mantis, ground beetles, and birds. Mint, rosemary, and other types of plants can attract beneficial bugs that can keep other insects under control.

You should keep a close eye on your plants to spot potential problems before they get out of control. If you see a hornworm on your tomato plants, pluck it off quickly and drown it in soapy water. Daily you can watch your plants and have a chance to stop these problems before becoming too difficult to handle.

If you’re having trouble with a particular pest, you can take pictures and then try to identify the pest. Search for it online. Take your pictures to your local county extension office or library if you can’t identify it.

When you’ve identified the pest, you can ask for advice on how to control it at your extension office. Ask them if they have any ideas for you and mention that you’re an organic gardener.

You may be able to prevent some pests by installing netting over your plants. Although this is probably a last resort, you may be able to save your plants from utter devastation if you have a particularly bad season of beetles or other such bugs.

Just remember, netting will also prevent beneficial insects from reaching your plants, so if some pests make it through, it may be harder to detect them and for predator insects to control them.

A very difficult part of organic gardening is pest control.

If you lose a crop to insects, you may be tempted to abandon organic gardening and rush out to buy a chemical spray. There are many organic gardeners who experience this. Try not to feel bad. It can certainly be very frustrating to deal with pests, especially when you’ve worked very hard to take care of your plants all season.

But just remember, organic gardening has so many benefits that it’s really worth it to go through all of the extra work. In the end, you’re family will have plenty of healthy food to it.

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