Imagine waking up one day and happily strolling to your vegetable garden and seeing a few of your lettuce leaves gnawed off. You’re wondering, “Hmm… how did that happen?”
The next day, you notice that someone or something has bitten off a chunk of one of your precious tomatoes. Gasp! Noo! It can’t beeee!
Yes… yes, it is. Every gardener’s nightmare is now yours too… you have pests in your garden.
They could be anything from aphids, to rodents and maybe even the occasional garden snake!
Covering ALL the different ways to prevent these pests is beyond the scope of this article… but we’ll look at the topic in general and see what you can do to deal with most of these pests.
1. What pests are bothering your garden?
The most important step is to know what pests you’re dealing with. They could be potato beetles, caterpillars, cabbage maggots, aphids, etc.
Once you know what these pests are, you can do a quick Google search to see how you can manage them.
2. Natural way or pesticides?
Generally, most small-time gardeners dislike using pesticides because they don’t want to cover their crops/produce with it. Even if the pesticides claim to be ‘safe’, they prefer using natural methods to thwart their garden foes.
One of the best ways to do this is to use a neem oil extract which is highly effective for killing off aphids and many other bugs in your garden. You’ll need to mix the neem oil extract with water and use a garden sprayer to effectively spread the mix over your plants and soil.
You must use a sprayer and not a watering can which is less effective at dispersing a mist over your plants.
Since the neem oil is organic, it’ll not adversely affect your plants/vegetables (or you when you consume them). The neem oil is a fungicide, insecticide and miticide – all rolled into one and is a very powerful pest control weapon to have in your gardening arsenal.
Another option is the BioAdvanced Vegetable Insect Control. It’s a formulated mix for most varieties of vegetable. You’ll just need to dissolve the mix in water and pour it around the base of your plants (on the soil).
You can use a watering can for this. No sprayer required.
* Dealing with rodents
Unlike pests which are found on leaves/soil, dealing with rodents is trickier. They tend to hide and come out when you’re not around and are usually quite smart at evading capture.
There are 2 ways to trap rats and mice: the humane way and the not so humane way.
Using humane traps such as the CaptSure Mouse Traps means that trapped mice will be alive and you can take them far from your house to a wooded area and release them.
There’s no pain, no cruelty and no mess. If you have children in the house, they’ll be able to look at the scampering mice in the trap and giggle… as opposed to seeing dead ones and running away crying. Maybe we exaggerate, but you get the point.
However, if you’re dealing with more than mice, you’d be better off using the Catchmaster Pest Trap. This is a highly effective glue board with a peanut butter scent to attract the pest.
Once the pest gets stuck on the board, it’ll not be able to move and will inevitably die. Not exactly humane, but very efficient for killing rats, centipedes, spiders, etc.
Some pests such as centipedes are not as cute as mice… and can be scary. So, the Catchmaster is a better option here.
Using a glue board is also less messy than a spring/snap trap which might cause the rodent’s body parts to get amputated and cause a bloody scene which might make many people squeamish.
* In conclusion…
How you go about controlling the pests in your garden will depend on the type of pest/s you have and your preferences. The solutions mentioned in this article will cover most problematic pests.
Do look at the solutions and decide which ones are best for you.
