Growing your own food is exciting, satisfying, healthy, environmentally friendly and also money-saving. While growing a backyard full of food is easy, keeping this produce from pest damage can be a little bit challenging. The last thing we want to happen in our kitchen garden is the pests destroying our precious harvest. But there are ways we can limit the damage done to our home ground crops by pests.
We are presenting the top 10 top organic ways to control pests in your food garden in this article however, there are some other methods that people have tried and have proved beneficial. You may do your own research on other methods, if interested.
Below is the list of the top ten tested ways to control pests in your garden in a very safe, easy and organic way.
Pests often target sick or dying plants because that’s the way they’re programmed to by nature. In fact it’s the nature’s way to clean up old plants. It is important to note that the pests will also attack healthy plants too. But if you keep your plants healthy by feeding them appropriate amounts of fertilizer and trace elements and growing them in good soil with the right amount of water, healthy plants will get hit less often than weaker plants. So the tip is to remove and discard the sick and dying plants. Also remove any off season plants since they become weak and hence an easy target for the pests.
Timing: Growing your food crops at the right time is important when it comes to pest control, many vegetables will germinate easily even at the wrong time of year but this doesn’t mean they’ll grow well. They might look okay but usually they grow poorly and won’t be as productive plants. Also certain pests are more active at different times e.g. we can grow tomatoes almost all year round except in the middle of summer which is now but the larger varieties get stung badly through spring when fruit flies are active. So instead we grow the cherry tomatoes which are not targeted because most are too acidic for the larvae to survive.
Early Harvest: Sometimes you can get away with harvesting your crops early before the pests get to them because most animals favor ripe fruits. You can pick your crop early and then let the fruit ripen in a safe area or eat the fruit green. Eating immature fruits is common in some countries like Asia e.g. green mango or green bananas. Let’s use the fruit fly example -if we pick out chilies or capsicum / peppers early like when they’re green they often don’t get hit by the fruit fly but if we wait and leave them go red they’ll get stung.
Grow More: If you use the law of averages and grow more, then you won’t care if some get eaten by pests. Gardeners even grow a sacrificial plant meaning they grow more than they need and allow one plant to become infested by pests which tends to attract more pests to the weakened plant and away from the other ones
Watering: Watering your plants can be a particularly fun time to take care of nasty bugs and a great way to relieve stress or removing pests. A hose with heavy pressure of water can make a big difference in slowing down the population and growth of pests in the garden. Remember, for every one bug or caterpillar you remove from a plant several more have been eaten by good animals like predator bugs and birds so together you can work as a team with nature to win the war on pests.
Keep poultry: Chickens and ducks can be excellent aides at controlling pests around the property or the home garden. These little ones prepare garden beds for the next season but they can be destructive so don’t give them free-range in the vegetable garden when it’s growing. But wandering through an orchard or around the property chickens can be an excellent bug catcher. When hens scratch the ground, they dig up and eat poop aiding pests like fruit fly that mature under the soil surface before flying out as adults to sting fruit and vegetable so having a few chickens around can help reduce pests overall and break the life cycle of bad bugs. Ducks like eating stink bugs such as citrus bugs and especially seek out the baby ones- the nymphs – so that could be very handy in the orchard. They love slugs and snails – also ducks don’t dig as much as chickens making them less damaging in the garden.
Habitat: One of the reasons that farmers need to use pesticides is because they grow one big large crop and pests are naturally attracted to a glut of produce. Nature often tries to correct imbalances by counteracting them to bring numbers back to manageable levels. Organic farmers are discovering that diversity of habitat is a strength and by growing a variety of produce and plants rather than one big mass of the same crop they have less problems with pests invading their property. Incorporate the natural landscape native flora and fauna to encourage good bugs and predator bugs into the garden and other beneficial animals – like birds creating a more natural habitat on your property is the best way to keep nature balanced. Happy companion planting is another great way to naturally repel pests for example planting basil alongside tomatoes. We’ve found that scattering herbs around the vegetable garden and orchard not only adds to the diversity of plants they also help to keep pests away from our property .
Organic sprays: There are organic sprays and remedies that can be used to control pests in your food garden without harming other animals or ourselves. E.g., you can easily make a very effective pest oil spray at home by mixing two cups of cooking oil with one cup of dishwashing liquid and then use about a tablespoon of this mix per liter in a spray bottle spray over scale a foods. Another quick remedy is a ring of Vaseline around the base of a plant that’s getting attacked. What applying vaseline to the base of the plant does is stop ants from climbing up. You can also buy pest oils and other organic certified sprays like garlic or chilli concentrate which is a pest spray however just keep in mind it will kill good bugs too– like bees so use it sparingly and target the pests at a time when the plants aren’t flowering or when pollinating insects are not around.
Exclusion: Using Nets or bags are one of the best ways to keep pests away from our produce but it could also be expensive, time consuming and not always practical in the home garden nevertheless netting whole trees or garden beds is effective against birds and most small animals. Insects netting is also excellent at protecting crops from pests and it’s the only organic way.
