Garden Pest Control

Use behavioral control for garden pest management. Behavioral pest control is the changing of your own pest-friendly behavior. Start by selecting plants that will do well in your area and give them proper spacing. Once things begin to grow, increase the amount of time you spend inspecting your plants for garden insects. Also, keep an eye on the ground for rodent holes and gnawed stems. Eliminate plant litter on the garden floor, as it supplies pests with food and shelter. Learning and applying proper watering and fertilization techniques is also important; the over application of either can make plants tastier and living conditions better for pests. Finally, you can be doing everything right but still get pests in your garden because your neighbors inadvertently lure them in. Suck it up, bake 'em a pie, and go talk to them.

Keep pests at bay with habitat control. With this method, you're basically attempting to make your garden an inhospitable place for garden pests. One thing you can do when implementing this type of organic garden pest control is to plant pest-repellent plants (companion plants). You should also start weeding to remove plants that supply extra food and shelter to garden pests. Removing hiding places and overwintering sites like brush piles, weed piles, leaf piles, logs, bricks, stones, large rocks, patio blocks, etc., will also help control pests. You might even want to consider getting rid of food sources like bird feeders, fruit trees, and fruit bushes and replacing open compost bins with enclosed ones. Most importantly, you need to consider what the garden pest you're dealing with needs to live happily (food, water, shelter) and take as many of those things out of the equation as you can.

Get rid of garden pests with physical pest control methods. These are methods that use barriers for pest exclusion. For garden insect control, you have very few, albeit very effective, options. The first is floating row covers. These are long sheets of thin, sheer material that let sunlight and water in while keeping insects out. Prop them over entire gardens or cut them into pieces for individual plants. Similar is the garden cloche—glass or plastic bowls (or globes) that are placed over single plants. Larger ones can be purchased or made for bigger areas. For mammal pests, erect tall fences that extend at least two feet below ground. To make them effective against climbers, add a couple of electrified wires. Finally, deter digging pests with a two-foot deep trench filled with cement, gravel, crushed seashell, or clay. Erect a fence above it and keep them from climbing over.

Consider mechanical pest control options. Mechanical pest control is the controlling of garden pests either by hand or with a pest control device. Pest removal by hand can be accomplished by inspecting plants, picking off offenders, and dropping them in a pail of soapy water. For a heavily infested plant, place a tarp under it, shake the bugs off the plant and onto the tarp, collect them, and drop them into soapy water. As for devices, the most common by far (be it for critter or bug control) are traps. There are live traps, death traps, water/beer traps, pit traps, sticky traps, and more; each is designed to immobilize or kill pests. Finally, numerous different pest repellent devices are available. There are motion-activated sprinklers, radios, and lights designed to startle and chase off pests, and sonic devices (with questionable effectiveness) that transmit noises that supposedly irritate target pests.

Employ biological pest control. Biological pest control is the controlling of pests through the use of natural/organic pesticides and/or living organisms. Pyrethrins, made from chrysanthemum flowers, are a classic example. Other natural pesticide options for controlling garden pests are diatomaceous earth, boric acid, insecticidal soap, and neem oil, just to name a few. If you're looking to add a little more umph to your green pest control routine (or even your not-so-green routine), you should be enlisting the help of living organisms. Encourage natural predators (ladybugs, lacewings, beneficial nematodes, parasitoid wasps, birds, toads, snakes, etc.) of the pests you're dealing with to inhabit your garden. Many of these can even be purchased online. You may also consider using host-specific bacteria or fungi like milky spore or Verticillium lecanii, respectively. For more in-depth information on the subject, read my article on Natural Pest Control.

Kill garden pests with chemical control. I won't insult you with an explanation of this one. Most insect pest control chemicals work by disrupting neural processes, poisoning the stomach, disrupting growth and/or molting, or some combination thereof. They can be sprays, dusts, or granules, and many have lasting residual knock-down power. For information on particular brands to purchase, either check our homepage for the article on your specific pest, or contact me personally. The biggest problem with using chemical pest control products is that many of them kill almost anything they come into contact with, including beneficial insects like bees, butterflies, hoverflies, lacewings, and lady beetles. When using any insecticides in the garden, I encourage you to use them only when necessary and to use them sparingly. Spot treat, if possible. For garden pests like rodents and moles, look for products containing warfarin, bromethalin, or chlorophacinone.