Amandać asks: How to get rid of bugs in my organic garden?
I have planted fruits, vegetables, and herbs and everything is organic. It’s a new garden so everything is just settling in[approx. 3 weeks] and I’m already seeing bugs. I need some good kind of “remedy” to kill these bugs but of course it can’t have any chemicals.
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Answer by Soulsister
Constantly play justin bieber outdoors on a radio
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About all you can do in the short term is wash them off the plants with water.
If you can identify what insects are there, and if they are ones that can do serious damage to the plants, then you can take steps NEXT year to plant stuff that will either drive them away or attract them to eat them (i.e. “sacrificial plants”).
If the insects don’t do much damage, you don’t need to do anything. People who buy organic produce expect to see some insect damage and/or to even find live insects on it. They even suspect something that looks too good of being non-organic.
There are organic bug killers.
Cakat.
Insecticidal soap.
Many insects are useful to plants. I agree that identifying the insects can help in protecting your garden, but unless you see real damage to your plants, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. BTW, if you wash your dishes in a dish pan instead of a sink or dishwasher, toss the left over water on your plants. The food bits will act as compost and the suds will keep away unwanted pests.
pesticides
hi amanda
My name is gardengail and i work for the home depot in the garden center.
There are a lot of beneficial insects out there, make sure you only spray the bad guys.Some of the good guys don’t really look like a good guy,so it might help to do a little research.
Insecticidal soap is a good way to keep your stuff organic, and is less harmful to the good guys,like ladybugs and aphid lions.
I plant a section of my yard for just the good guys.Plant dill, fennel, cilantro and chamomile to attract the ladybugs that eat small, soft-bodied insects.
leave the the paper wasps with the small umbrella shaped nests alone, they are not aggressive and keep caterpillars down to a minimum, they also will leave at the end of the year and start a new nest somewhere else.
use a rolled up moist newspaper to get rid of earwigs naturally, dump it in a trash can in the morning, you will able to get rid of them.
However ugly opossums are, they are your friend and if they are in you back yard they are eating roaches and snails, and there has only been one recorded instance of rabies in one in the last 100 years, their body temperature is just too low. They will not eat your ripe fruit[like rats do], they only like rotten fruit.
hope this helps,
Gardengail
Well depends on what type.
Ants and different bugs don’t like moist soil. So just spray around the soil with water ( but just make the top of the soil moist enough)
Mosquitoes, gnats..etc do not like the smell of mint, citronella, lemongrass ..etc , So maybe try adding those into you’re garden too.
Also, marigolds and many other plants can be planted to protect from bugs.
You don’t want to get rid of the bugs in an Organic garden, you want to control the past bugs and encourage the beneficial bugs (and spiders, snakes, toads, frogs, etc..). Know that 95% of the bugs in your garden are helping you out and it is up to you to know the good from the bad. You also have to know which controls to use for which pests as in organics the insecticides are generally targeted to certain pests unlike the broad spectrum pesticides used in the conventional gardening world.
Here is how bug control works-in a well balanced garden you have both good and bad bugs. the good bugs control the bad bugs. Now, if you spray an insecticide that kills all the bugs the bad bugs will come back to your garden first and do a great deal of damage for many weeks or months. the beneficial bugs will stay away until there is a big enough population of prey (bad bugs) to come back. if you spray insecticides before the bad bug population gets big than the beneficial bugs will never return and you will have to garden using chemicals and not organically
Also know that going organic is a process that takes many years. Your garden is not Organic as it is not in balance and your soil like is not healthy and full of life and until your soil is healthy your garden will not be all that healthy.But keep on putting down compost on the soil, growing cover crops and practicing crop rotation and it will get there in time.
What I do in my market garden 5+ acres) is hand pick the insects off of the plants, use row covers over top of the plants to exclude [est insects), use soap spray of soft bodied insects, Bt for caterpillars, trap crops for a variety of critters, sticky traps for other critters, etc.. As you can see with organic pest control there is no magic bullet, but rather one must take a multi-faceted approach.
I really like the book “The Organic gardener’s Handbook to natural insect and disease control” by Ellis and Bradley. I also like this book seller http://www.back40books.com they have been organic farmers and homesteaders for decades and really know their stuff and have a great selection of books on Organic gardening. I suggest you obtain some reading material as Organic gardening is a lot harder than using chemicals but well worth the effort to learn how to do.
Bugs are everywhere and seeing them in your garden doesn’t mean they are killing your plants. For those that are making damage, however, there are organic substances to help you keep your garden healthy – or bugs that eat bad bugs. You’ll have to do some research.
We forget with the enhancement of technology how to live in a world without it. The same can be said for pest control. We have forgotten that pest control on farms and in home gardens used to be organic. We invented “better” methods for pest control when we began spreading pesticides over our crops. This method of pest control was supposed to save us time, save our crops, and help us produce more food, but as luck would have it this method is dangerous. The pesticides can be toxic to more than just the bugs. It can harm people and the land. It should come as no surprise to most people that organic garden pest control has been around for centuries. In fact the first crops ever placed on a farm had organic pest control.
People from the past taught us what types of bugs were harmful to crops and what types of bugs could eliminate these pests. Today many farms are going back to the organic garden pest control method in order to kill the pests and save the humans and land. We are demanding organic foods not only because they taste better, but also because we don’t have to worry about toxic substances hurting us or our family.
Organic Garden Pest Control – http://www.perennial-gardens.com/flower-articles/organic-garden-pest-control.htm
As part of organic garden pest control, you should take care of the soil in the garden and make sure it stays fertile and healthy throughout the year. You can do this by working on your garden throughout the year by adding compost and rearranging your plants. You should make sure that all the planting is done when conditions are not conducive for the growth of pests. Another useful strategy is to allow the growth of bugs that eat pests in your garden. This is where the use of chemicals can be disadvantageous as the bugs that are useful can also get killed.
More on Organic Pest Control – http://www.perennial-gardens.com/flower-articles/organic-pest-control.htm