Creative Solutions for Keeping Pests Out of Your Garden

If you grow it, they will come.  Critters don't understand property rights. Gardens are often and disastrously lost to predators unless the owner takes garden defense seriously. Identify the predator, or potential predator (the one that gets into the neighbor's garden). Then act to prevent the problem, or you'll risk losing what you're working so hard to grow. 

One general deterrent for deer, dogs, cats, and raccoons is the "garden cop," a sprinkler that sprays 3- to 4-second bursts of water when its electronic sensor detects an animal (or person). After squirting, it automatically shuts off and continues to scan the area for the next perimeter violation. "Garden cops" connect to your garden hose and are available from garden suppliers.

Birds, wild or tame, love to eat corn, bean, and pea seeds right after they sprout and before these plants are up a few inches. If birds are a risk, plant the seed extra deep and don't leave any showing. Firm the planted kernels so they stay down there until they germinate. A well-made scarecrow that moves in a breeze may keep them away, especially if it wears real people clothes, has shiny foil hanging strips for "hands," and has a foil face.

Gophers make a horseshoe-shaped mound with an exit hole on one side. A wide variety of traps, poison gases, and poison baits are available from garden supply companies to deal with gophers or moles. Or you could try chewing gum. Dig down to a part of the hole under the mound. Unwrap the gum (don't touch it and leave your scent), and puts 2 sticks down in the hole. Use large leaves (or paper) to cover the hole where he dug down, and puts dirt on top of that. (Block the light, but don't cover the gum with dirt.) Only one kind of gum works for this. It's "juicy" and "fruity."

Slugs and snails will eat stalks and leaves of tender plants. A thick growth of prostrate rosemary makes a border they will not cross, seeming to dislike its sharp foliage. To collect them, put out a saucer of beer, or of milk mixed with water, set down into the ground so that the dish's edge is at ground level. They'll crawl in and drown. Or save eggshells, dry, and finely crush. Then sprinkle them on the garden ground where the slimers go. The shell fragments stick to them and kill them. Don't use the salting method of slug murder because salt kills both slugs and garden veggies.

 

Weird Ways to Deter Pesky Pests From Your Home Garden

Here on the streets of Seattle, the only wild fauna I ever encounter is the occasional sneaky raccoon or opossum scurrying down my alleyway. However, if you live in a suburban or more rural area and are growing a garden, you will have to worry about losing your hard work to hungry critters. The main offenders will most likely be birds, deer and rodents. In The Encyclopedia of Country Living, you'll find some standard methods for tackling pests, as well as some more unusual ones, courtesy of Carla Emery.

If birds are a risk, there are several ways to deter them, including purchasing a bird control net that you can stretch over your garden. Carla suggests trying an old-fashioned method, which might be fun to make - the scarecrow:

"A well-made scarecrow that moves in a breeze really will help keep them away, especially if you supply it with real people-clothes, shiny foil hanging strips for 'hands,' and a foil face."

If you live in a suburban area, you have probably seen deer in your garden or lawn. Although beautiful to look at, their increasing population is making them bolder as they search for food. To keep your garden safe from deer can be tricky, Carla recommends high fencing to keep them out. Or, you can try one of these effective methods:

"Other deer deterrents are human hair, human urine, and rotten eggs. Ask your local barber or hairdresser to save cut hair for you; spread that around the outside edge of your garden. (Put out fresh hair every few weeks.) Or break rotten eggs around that garden edge. Or send the family's males to urinate around that garden perimeter. Or blast music. Or bring home lion and bear manure from the local zoo and spread it around the perimeter. Or spray garden veggies with hot pepper spray. Or any combination of these."

Rodents will also try to eat up your crops before you can get to it. Gophers and moles are two creatures that exasperate many a gardener. Traps, poison gases, or bait can eliminate them, all of which you can purchase at any garden supply store. Or, try gum:

"One old-timer kills the gophers around his eastern Oregon garden with gum. He digs down to a part of the hole under the mound. He unwraps the gum (don't touch it and leave your scent), and puts 2 sticks down in the hole. He uses large leaves (or paper) to cover the hole where he dug down, and puts dirt on top of that. (Block the light, but don't cover the gum with dirt.) Only one kind of gum works for this. It's 'juicy' and 'fruity.'"

To Spray, or Not to Spray...

If you plant and then find that something else ate most of a crop before you got there, you won't be the first person this has ever happened to. The number of possible plant diseases and plant-devouring insect species, to say nothing of fungi and garden-munching mammals, is legion. People try everything: from pesticides, to bug vacuums, to ground up municipal waste. However, before you consider spraying, check out this argument against the use of chemical fertilizers.

* Plants don't distinguish between organic or inorganic nutrients, but their impact on soil health is critical.

* Chemicals are injurious to soil microbes that naturally produce plant food, creating a sterile environment that must constantly be artificially replenished.

* Water-soluble chemical fertilizers leach and contribute to ground-water contamination, and the quick burst of food they do provide does not last for the entire growing season.

* Most artificial fertilizers are petroleum based.

* Chemical fertilizers do not improve soil texture and water-holding capacity the way mulch, compost, manure, and cover crops do.

You might have to get creative, but it's very possible to mitigate the effects of pests organically. For example, when you're working to protect your leafy greens, consider trying these methods. You can banish bugs using herbs!

Scatter dill seed among young cabbages or plant a row of thyme alongside to repel insects. A mixture of boiled onion and garlic sprayed on the plants will also deter bugs. To control root maggots, spread wood ashes around each plant, digging some into the ground at the roots; replace the ash after heavy rains until maggot season is over at the end of June.

And when the those pesky pests are thwarting your every effort, be sure to consult these helpful tips from Carla Emery.

Basic Organic Gardener's Plant Defense

1. The best defenses against bacterial and fungus problems are well-nourished soil, plenty of sunshine, and plenty of water.

2. Consider companion planting with these plants, which have pest-repellent talents and/or attract pest-eating bugs: marigolds, alliums, evening primrose, wild buckwheat, baby blue eyes, candytuft, bishops flower, black-eyed Susan, strawflowers, nasturtiums, angelica, and yarrow.

3. To combat greenhouse insect pests, careful screening is the simple, basic answer.

4. In urban areas, the "plant doctor" is the equivalent of the rural vet. You can get a beloved plant diagnosed and treated by the doc's house call, although it costs. It's more likely to need more or less water or more or less light than to suffer from a disease.

5. Move each vegetable's planting place around in your garden every year. This helps avoid a build-up of one kind of pest or pestilence in a part of your garden. Don't let them just lie in wait to eat the same stuff next year. Move the target!

6. Buy resistant seed varieties.

7. Use diatomaceous earth to combat slugs and snails. (It must be dry to work.)

8. Use beneficial insects: ladybugs, predatory mites, praying mantis, beneficial nematodes, parasitic wasps, mealy bug destroyers, etc.

9. Set traps for larger pests.

10. Use sprays of environmentally safe (biodegradable), natural (plant-originated) material such as garlic, hot pepper, pyrethrum, nicotine, or rotenone as a last resort. Or mulch with coffee grounds, etc.

11. Don't leave disease-infected plants in the garden, and don't put them on the compost pile. This goes for clubroot, late blight in tomatoes and potatoes, and any other soilborne contagion. Put them on a separate trash pile or burn them.