Organic Garden Pest Control
Organic garden pest control means to control your garden pests using natural methods rather than through applying pesticides and chemicals.
It is much safer for your plants, family, pets, and wildlife, if you control undesirable pests and insects using these natural products or methods.
It is also a lot less expensive than buying pesticides year in year out. Once you get the hang of it you will find a method that suits you and your garden or yard.
Gardeners / Home Owners
Every year, gardeners will apply pesticides to their gardens without realising the consequences or the knock on effect each little drop of chemicals is having on the global environment and wildlife.
Collectively, people are using a higher quantity of pesticides in their own small gardens than farmers are in the mass production of crops. That just seems very strange when most people have a small garden with a few unwanted insects or bugs. It is often the home owners who are the ones responsible for contaminating water sources, not the farmers who generally operate under strict rules and guidelines.
There is also a tendency to overuse these products and apply much more than is actually necessary.
Prevention
The best way forward for organic garden pest control is to prevent damage by pests in the first place. Prevention is better than cure! You can discourage pests from coming into your garden by following these guidelines
Dispose of unhealthy, weak, or infected plants. If you leave them there you will risk the infection spreading and they will continue to attract pests.
Keep your plants healthy and vigorous by using a natural compost to fertilise and mulch your soil. A healthy soil deters unwanted pests.
Keep your garden tools and equipment clean. Take particular care to wash your garden tools if you have been working with infected plants or area of the garden before moving on to a healthy patch.
If you are planting annually, try rotating the plants or crops so they are not planted in the same place. Rotation will help prevent species specific pests from breeding in the soil and infecting next year’s plants.
To repel slugs while also fertilizing the garden, try using seaweed mulch. However, do be aware that some plants do not like the trace elements present in seaweed so make sure you are aware of those species and don’t use it around the plants that won’t like it or they may die.
Make sure that when you clear away any infected plants and weeds you remove them from the garden completely.
Carry out your watering in the morning and try not to wet too much foliage. Damp or wet foliage will attract insects and may also result in fungal infection. It is better if the foliage is dry most of day and this can be achieved by watering early in the morning.
Beneficial Insects
Encouraging beneficial insects into your garden has proved to be a highly effective method of organic garden pest control. Harmful insects find life difficult, and hard to compete with, when beneficial insects are encouraged by gardeners.