Having a home vegetable or flower garden can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Watching your plants grow from delicate seeds into abundant, beautiful plants is nothing short of magical. However, your lovely garden oasis can quickly turn into a nuisance when pests invade and begin munching on your plants. Using chemical pesticides may eliminate the problem temporarily, but these toxic chemicals also kill beneficial insects like ladybugs and bees and can be harmful to you, your family, and the environment. Luckily, there are many safe and effective natural methods to deter common garden pests without using dangerous pesticides.
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Companion Planting
One of the best defenses is a good offense when it comes to preventing garden pests. Strategically planning your garden landscape to use companion plants that naturally repel common insect pests and diseases is an excellent long-term solution. Certain plants actually release odors that naturally repel problematic insects, masking the scent of your desirable plants. Some great companion plants to repel pests include:
- Marigolds - The pungent scent of marigolds deters beetles, whiteflies, nematodes, aphids, squash bugs, and even rabbits! Plant them liberally throughout your garden.
- Basil - Repels flies, mosquitoes, and aphids. Plant next to your tomatoes.
- Garlic and chives - Repels aphids, spider mites, cabbage loopers, cabbage worms, carrot flies, Japanese beetles, snails, and cabbage moths. They also help prevent plant diseases. Plant garlic and chives around your vegetable plants.
- Petunias - Repels aphids, tomato hornworms, asparagus beetles, leafhoppers, squash bugs, and a variety of caterpillars. Plant petunias near your most susceptible plants.
Incorporating these pest-fighting plants throughout your garden helps create a natural protective barrier to keep pests away from your fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Interplant them throughout your beds or use them as attractive border plants.
Physical Barriers
Installing physical barriers is another non-toxic approach to prevent insects, small mammals like gophers, mice, and rabbits, and disease-causing fungi from reaching your plants. Simple but highly effective options include:
- Floating row covers - Lightweight spun fabrics drape directly over plants, allowing air, light, and water to pass through while forming a protective shield. Row covers create a temporary greenhouse-like environment perfect for seedlings. They also provide an impenetrable barrier for nearly all flying and crawling insects during early plant growth when plants are most vulnerable, protecting them from pests like cabbage moths, carrot rust flies, flea beetles, and potato beetles. Use anchoring pins, boards, wire hoops, or cages to support covers above foliage depending on the plant height. Ventilate on hot days. Remove covers when plants start to flower to allow pollination.
- Fences and netting - Sturdier wire, plastic, or nylon fences from 2-4 feet tall help deter larger pests like rabbits, groundhogs and deer. Softer netting is also useful for shielding plants from birds. Consider partially burying a portion of the fence to prevent animals from burrowing underneath.
- Tree guards - Wrapping breathable cardboard, metal, or plastic barriers around tree trunks prevents damage from gnawing critters like voles, rabbits, and deer as well as prevents insects like borers from accessing the trunks during vulnerable youth. Apply in late fall and remove the following summer.
- Mulch - A two to four-inch layer of organic mulch like wood chips, pine needles, shredded leaves or straw acts as an impenetrable physical weed barrier and provides a protective buffer zone between the soil and plant leaves to deter crawling pests. Replenish as needed.
Traps
Using traps is an inexpensive, effective way to catch and eliminate invading pests while avoiding chemical treatments. Different trap types target specific garden villains:
- Sticky traps - Bright yellow cardboard sheets or rolls coated with a non-drying adhesive capture small flying insects like whiteflies, aphids, thrips, leafminer flies and fungus gnats as well as crawling insects like earwigs. The color and sticky surface effectively attracts and traps insects attempting to land or crawl on the cards. Traps are situated just above the plant canopy or along the soil line. For best results, use multiple traps spaced throughout the garden to catch insects already present as well as newcomers. Check frequently and replace when full.
- Pheromone traps - Species-specific synthetic plant volatiles are used to sexually attract target hungry adult pests like Japanese beetles, codling moths, and corn borers into containers for monitoring and disposal before they lay eggs and multiply. These traps allow early detection and control of invasive insects through mating disruption and trapping emerging adults.
- Slug traps - Placing small containers (like yogurt cups) buried flush with the soil and filled with cheap beer or a yeast mixture attracts slugs and snails overnight to drown. Create a lip of petroleum jelly around the rim adds slippery frustration to prevent escape. Dispose of the dead mollusks in the morning. Replenish the beer/yeast as needed after rain. Traps will need to be scattered generously throughout affected areas for adequate control.
- Weed removal - Aggressively pull out the roots of any weeds, which provide shelter, sustenance, and breeding grounds to garden pests. Weed early in plant development and frequently for best results. Weeds also compete with your plants for vital nutrients and water.
Natural Pest Control Sprays
When companion planting, barriers, traps and weed removal fail to keep pests below an acceptable damage threshold, the next step before turning to chemical intervention is bio-rational pest control products. Derived from plants, minerals or microbes instead of synthetic toxins, these natural insecticides, fungicides and repellents effectively eliminate current infestations while preserving populations of beneficial pollinators like lady beetles, green lacewings and bees. Excellent organic options include:
- Neem oil - Extracted from the seeds of the tropical neem tree, this oil coats and smothers soft-bodied insects like aphids, caterpillars, mealybugs and spider mites on contact, clogging their feeding tubes and disrupting their life cycle so they starve or fail to develop properly. Neem oil also repels feeding insects while suppressing fungal diseases like powdery mildew. Use a diluted spray early at first sighting; safe for people and pets.
- Insecticidal soaps - Soap-based sprays dissolve the waxy outer shell of soft-bodied insects like mealybugs, allowing fatal dehydration. Quick breakdown makes repeated applications every 5-7 days necessary for adequate control but these sprays are safe for people, pets, beneficial insects, birds and the environment. Brands like Safer® and Natria® work well.
- Diatomaceous earth - This powdered natural mineral compound comprised of fossilized algae has microscopic razor-sharp edges that physically shred the waxy coatings of slugs, snails and insects when they crawl across treated areas, leading to fatal dehydration. The sharp particles also effectively control ants. Apply a fine layer around affected plants after irrigating. Reapply after rain. Use food-grade quality only.
- Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) - This naturally occurring soil bacteria produces proteins that interact with the gut lining of insects like cabbage worms, tomato hornworms, and mosquito larvae when ingested, leading to fatal septicemia. Harmless to humans, pets and plants, brands like Dipel, Thuricide and Monterey Bt specifically target hungry leaf chewing caterpillars. Apply at first sighting; safe for bees.
By combining cultural practices like proper garden sanitation, habitat modification with physical barriers, biological controls and least-toxic pesticides when absolutely necessary, you can successfully manage pest problems without endangering your family, beneficial pollinators or the environment. While homemade treatments like hot pepper or garlic sprays, milkweed brews and soap solutions found online seem promising, university research shows these concoctions provide little if any real insect control. Stick with integrated pest management techniques that emphasize prevention first for best results. With some persistence and patience, you can outsmart garden pests to grow a vibrant, productive garden using natural methods.
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