If you pick a pest, you can usually find a natural counter for it, most often in the form of other insects. There are no reasons why you would need to use chemicals for your pest control, there are many very powerful methods that you can use. Here are five of them.
The first method is to attract beneficial insects with specific plants or to buy them from a catalogue. Brachonids, chalcids and ichneumon Wasps are good to get rid of leaf eating caterpillars. You can attract them with carrot plants, celery plants, parsley or caraway. The flowers form these plants attracts those wasps.
Ladybugs are very useful to your garden, as they consume aphids, mites, whiteflies and scale. They are usually attracted to daisies, tansy or yarrow. You can also purchase some in an online catalogue.
Lacewings are also aphid consumers, while their larvae will eat many other kinds of pests. Those insects are attracted to composite flowers, like goldenrod, yarrow and asters. You can also purchase them online. Hoverflies are pretty similar to the lacewings, as they eat mostly the same kind of pests and are attracted to the similar plants.
Another good insect is the praying mantis. These large insects have a pretty big appetite when it comes to garden pests. You can buy some praying mantis eggs online and set them in the garden, were they will hatch and prey on pests.
The second organic method that you can use is a special recipe using garlic. Yes stinking garlic can be used to repel pests. It is useful for controlling cabbageworm, leafhoppers, and whitefly. You can mix 3 garlic cloves with 2 teaspoon of vegetable oil and let it rest for 24 hours. After that you need to strain the liquid, then mix 1 teaspoon of dishwashing soap with 1 liter of water. Mix it well and spray it on the plants.
Next organic method is using some peppermint. Peppermint and other kinds of similar herbs, such as catnip and spearmint, are pretty good to get rid of your pests. You just need to mix it with apple cider vinegar in a spray bottle and start spraying. It will kill bug or make them go away and is pretty effective on a wide variety of pests.
For the fourth organic method you can use pepper. Pepper has a strong smell and bugs are not too keen on approaching an area that has pepper. The best concoction using pepper is to mix it with flour, then you can spray it around your garden.
Last method is similar to the garlic method, but will be using onions too. Here is the recipe: mix 4 onions, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 tablespoon of cayenne pepper with a quarter of water. Blend this well, then dilute 2 tablespoon of soap flakes with 2 liters of water. Mix everything together and blend it again. This will give you a potent pest spray and enough quantity to last a long time.
The Author:
Lance Pierce has worked for a few summers in the pest control industry as a student job, so I will be sharing my knowledge with articles.
Photo. Manfred Richter
Source: EA