Natural and Environmentally Friendly Ways to Protect Your Garden from Pests
Posted by Lisa Carey
There are some tried and true methods that can help control lawn, garden and flower pests that can combine natural or non-toxic ingredients. FInd out some of our favorites and how they work.
For many gardeners while visions of roses and tomatoes dance in their heads, pests are dancing in their gardens. Whiteflies take up tenancy in your perennials, moles devour your lawn with holes and tunnels, aphids ambush your rose bushes, cabbage worms chow down on your cabbage and broccoli and yet green gardeners can feel defenseless. No one wants to spray toxic chemicals or spread poisonous powders on or near their food, in their lawns where their kids, grandkids and pets play or on their flowering blooms that may eventually be the centerpiece on the dining room table.
There are some tried and true methods that can help control lawn, garden and flower pests that can combine natural or non-toxic ingredients. Consider cooking up some of these easy critter defense cocktails from Jerry Baker, author of the Backyard Problem Solver and Container Garden Magic.
Here’s a Green Antidote for Rose Aphids
If you’ve seen one aphid, then you can be sure that you have hundreds.
Mix 1 orange chopped orange peel, 1 tbsp of baby shampoo and two cups of water in a blender for 15 seconds. Strain the “pulp” through a coffee filter and pour into a handheld mist bottle. Use your water hose blast away the aphids and then mist the plants with this Rose Aphid Antidote to keep them away.
Here’s a Moles Be Gone Tonic
Moles are the “monsters under the bed” of your lawn. Pour this mixture into your mole holes to send them away.
Mix 1 ½ tbsp. of hot sauce, 1 tbsp. of dishwashing liquid, 1 tsp. of chili powder and 1 quart of water.
It will take some time to hit all of your mole holes but these are often on hand ingredients and safe for the environment.
>strong>Here’s a Party’s Over Potion for Cabbage and Broccoli Worms
Simply mix one cup of flour and 1 tsp. of cayenne pepper and dust your cabbage and broccoli plants to send Cabbage Worms wriggling away..
Here’s a Whitefly Wipeout Tonic
Mix 1 cup of sour milk that has been standing out for two days, 1 tsp. of flour and 1 qt. of warm water in a bowl. Spray over blooming plants that have been invaded by whiteflies. You’ll need to repeat after a week to control newly hatched whiteflies.
Other Natural Ways to Fight Garden Pests
Another natural way to keep garden pests out of your garden party is to have a buffet of plants that naturally encourage garden to pests to RSVP with a decline.
Marigolds and horseradish repel many pests. Marigolds can be planted around and throughout a vegetable garden but will require extra water on hot days. To repay you for your efforts, they will dot your garden with warm and inviting color.
Horseradish is a hearty perennial. Some people love the taste and others are turned off by it but most garden pests are repelled by horseradish. Since horseradish plants will take over if left unchecked, one remedy is to plant it in pots and set them out in your garden for security detail.
As well as planting deterrents in your garden, consider inviting garden pest’s enemies to your garden party as well. You don’t have to kiss a frog to make him be a garden prince. Toads love beetles as well as other pests such as slugs, cutworms, gypsy moth larvae, sow bugs and armyworms. Toads will eat up to 15,000 pests a year. How do you send a toad an invitation to your garden? Simply offer them a home and they will move in. You can purchase decorative toad houses but flat rocks that offer a roof or an upside down flowerpot lifted on one side by a rock is just as welcoming to a toad. Since toads are most active at night, they’ll likely stay out of your way.
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary claims to have used silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row in her garden but certainly Mary didn’t use harmful pesticides in her garden. A few environmentally friendly home remedies and natural solutions can keep your garden toxin free and reduce pests too.
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