Square Foot Gardening Article
Dealing with Garden Pests
While tending to my own garden, I have found that one of the most frustrating
things that can happen to a gardener is to walk outside to check on your plants.
Its just a routine walk to make sure that your garden is thriving, but you end
up finding holes in all of your plants that looked fine only hours before. The
explanations for some of these plant-destroying holes are garden pests. Some of
the main garden pests are slugs, worms, caterpillars, birds, snails, and the
occasional gopher. Although you can never wipe out these pests entirely, after
all your hard work in the garden you have to do something.
Insects are one of the worst things to have in your garden; they can live under
the soil, in old weeds or piles of leaves, or in a number of other places. In
order to help keep insects away, always try and eliminate places in your garden
and near your garden that these insects and other plant diseases could be
living. Remove old leaves, weeds, or any other decaying matter that insects and
diseases could be living in from your yard. Also, regularly turn over your
garden soil and break apart any clumps of dirt so that you can eliminate the
living spaces any insects that might be hiding underground.
Another way to rid your garden of the pests is to use dormant spray, which is
used to keep destructive insects and diseases under control. It is best that you
use dormant spray when your plants are dormant, usually around February or early
March. I have used dormant spray many times on my garden and it has worked
wonders on keeping insects out. But as I learned from experience, dormant spray
is only effective if you follow the correct instructions. When I first decided
to use some on my garden, I just dumped it everywhere in hopes of killing
everything harmful. Unfortunately I ended up killing my entire garden along with
my neighbors. Some insects can be beneficial to your garden though, so be sure
to find out which insects help your garden.
Another pest problem I've had besides insects has been birds. Whenever I see
birds in my garden I run outside a chase them away, but as soon as I step inside
they come right back. The solution that I've come up with to keep the birds away
from my garden is to put a bird feeder in my yard. Instead of costing me time
and money by eating my garden, the birds eat at the bird feeder. In the long run
itll save you money. Not only can a bird feeder help keep birds away from your
garden, but they can also be a new part of your yard decoration. Although not
completely eliminating my bird problem, my bird feeder has made the problem
smaller. Getting a dog has also helped.
If you start seeing mounds of dirt around your yard, and your plants keep
unexplainably dieing, you can assume that you have a gopher problem.
Thankfully, this is one of the few garden pasts that I haven't had. However my
friend has struggled with a tremendous gopher infestation, so I decided to
research it. Gophers are rodents that are five to fourteen inches long. Their
fur can be black, light brown, or white, and they have small tails. One method
of getting rid of these root-eating pests is to set traps. The key to
successfully capturing a gopher using a trap is to successfully locate the
gopher's tunnels and set the trap correctly. Another way to get rid of them is
to use smoke bombs, which you place into the tunnel and the smoke spreads
through out it and hopefully reaches the gopher.
If you suspect that your gardens are being pillaged by any of the pests I
mentioned, I encourage you to try your hardest to eliminate the problem as soon
as possible. The longer you let the species stay, the more established it will
become.
