Dealing With Pests In Your Vegetable Garden
Pests, deer, rabbits, mice, and insects all love your fresh, home grown vegetables. And they go a step further, munching on leaves and roots. These creatures not only eat the vegetable but also prevent the plant from producing.
Vigilance is required to keep your vegetable garden free from pests. Combining various methods makes this chore easier.
Good pest control starts even before the vegetables grow, by proper soil preparation, plant selection and watering practice. Maintaining a slightly acidic soil, around pH 6.5 can help. Keeping the soil well fertilized helps the plants grow well, which gives them the needed assistance to fight off pests.
Seek out seeds that are pest resistant. Don’t fear genetic modification programs, since one goal is to create just such seeds. If you transplant, select healthy plants.
Watch for pests and harmful insects. Chemical sprays, however, are not your first solution. Gardening problems can often be controlled biologically, but you must be knowledgeable about the organisms present in your garden. Some of these organisms actually aid your plants in healthy growth.
Japanese beetles, caterpillars, and aphids can be eaten by assassin bugs. Stink bugs eat potato beetles and certain caterpillars. Ladybugs consume aphids, mealybugs, and spider mites. These are just two examples among many.
Watering in the morning will help. It keeps fungus and other problems to a minimum. Just as with grass, vegetables can be prone to growths that are encouraged by nighttime temperatures and excess moisture on the leaves. Allowing the plant to soak up needed water early, then dry before the temperature drops, will help prevent such problems. Keeping them disease free minimizes insect damage, since a weakened plant will often not survive minor infestations. A healhty plant can fight them off.
Prevent the spread of insects by planting different species. Pest populations may explode when numerous similar plants are spaced close together. These pests either gather together or reproduce more quickly. And eradicating a big population of pests is more difficult. They can ruin your plant before you are able to get rid of them entirely.
Just as with animals and humans, pests spread in part by contact. Removing any part or plant that has been infected is not always necessary, but may be your only means of saving other healthy plants if you cannot save the infected plant.
Building a good fence with narrow mesh at the base will help keep larger animals - rabbits and deer, for example - from getting to your vegetables.
Commercial insecticides can be useful when preventative efforts are not enough. These products are designed to eradicate insect populations and are still safe for human contact and consumption of the vegetables.
Tags: Vegetables