Pest Control - Garden Pests


by Stephanie McIntyre - Date: 2006-12-18 - Word Count: 704 Share This!

The list of bug pests that the gardener has to battle could easily fill a book. There really are too many to cover in one online article. But here are some of the ones that most gardeners will come across at one time or another.

Slugs - these slow moving slime buckets can do serious damage to both ornamental and vegetable plants. And since they're nocturnal, you must creep about at night, flashlight in hand to catch them in the act. There are a number of effective methods and products that can be used against them. Here are some:

· Make a beer trap. Set a bowl or saucer in the ground with the lip just a little above the soil and fill with beer. Place them approximately every three feet in slug land. Slugs are attracted to the yeast, crawl in and drown. Clean out the trap in the morning and replenish the beer as needed.

· Sprinkle something with sharp edges around areas that slugs frequent. When they crawl across this barrier, they slice themselves and leak precious bodily fluids, which kills them. Diatomaceous earth, sharp sand, or crushed egg or oyster shells will do the trick.

· Iron phosphate baits that you sprinkle around your plants are an effective natural control. The slugs can't resist eating it and once they do it stops the feeding urge so they die.

Aphids - these small (less than 1/8 inch) insects can appear in great numbers on your garden plants in a hurry. Thankfully they are fairly easy to get rid of: all that's required is a little diligence. You can remove them from plants with the spray from a hose that's strong enough to knock them off but not forceful enough to damage plants. This harms their mouthparts so that they can't feed. Ladybugs and their larvae love to eat aphids. They will soon appear after aphids do. If you need more you can order them by mail. And you can use insecticidal soaps to kill aphids as well. These are safe and not toxic to humans and pets.

Cutworms - are bad bugs that like to feast on emerging seedlings. During the night, they can devastate a garden full of very young plants. Prevention is the best approach with these baddies. Protect young plants with some type of tube that extends 2" below the soil surface and about 3" above. Also you can come out at night and collect them by hand and drop them into soapy water. And you can spread and sprinkle eggshells around areas cutworms are known to frequent.

Cucumber beetles - these green spotted or yellow striped beetles can cause serious damage to members of the cucurbit family because they transmit the disease bacterial wilt. Cucurbits include cucumbers, melons and squash. Feeding adult beetles spread the disease and once it's infected, there's nothing one can do. Eventually the entire plant dies. The best control against cucumber beetles is to use row covers to prevent contact with plants. You can also hand pick them when you see them, but they move pretty fast and anyway, by then it may be too late. Some have success using a Dustbuster type hand-vac to remove them. You can also try yellow sticky traps, which they are attracted to and which will trap them.

Thrips - these tiny, 1/20" bugs are small in size but big in terms of the damage they cause. They damage a plant by sucking the juices from them, which affects plant growth and the formation of foliage and flowers. They tend to feed in unexposed areas so they are sometimes difficult to get at. They also transmit these two diseases for which there are no controls: impatiens necrotic spot virus and tomato spotted wilt virus. They are not easy to control but if you find them you can try these steps:

- Use a strong jet of water to knock them from the plant.
- Get rid of those plant sections and flowers that have been affected.
- Mulches made of aluminum foil have been shown in some cases to be effective.
- Use overhead watering which can kill them.
- Insecticidal soaps are effective if you can reach the thrips.
- And of course there are always natural predators such as lady beetles, lacewings and mantids.


Related Tags: pest control, pests, insect pests, animal pests, organic pest control, indoor pests, outdoor pests

Stephanie McIntyre has been a Platinum eBay Powerseller, an eBay Trading Assistant as well as an Educational Assistant trained by eBay. Her company, eSales Unlimited Inc. specializes in training small business owners in using eBay as an additional revenue stream. She maintains a site with information on selling on eBay.

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