Natural Pest Control

When you choose to live the organic life, you make the conscious effort to not bring anything harmful or toxic into your home or garden.

Your garden is going to attract insects both beneficial and harmful. Natural pest control is the best way to to rid your yard and home of these insects which will sometimes become necessary depending on how large the bug invasion is.

Many insects will devour your plants and also aid in spreading diseases among your plants and into your soil.

There are organic pesticides. These pesticides can still be toxic to the good bugs as well as the bad. Just because they say organic on the label does not mean they are safe to use. Pesticides can still do great harm to insects and needs to be used only in extreme cases of harmful bug invasions.

Have slugs will travel…

Slugs leave distinguishing marks on your leaves and on your soil. Huge ragged holes chewed in leaves and flowers of older plants or having your seedlings vanish overnight, is a pretty clear sign that you have slugs and snails.

Also a dead giveaway is the long, silver-streaked slime trails on the ground.

Slugs and snails thrive best in flower gardens that are thick, cool, and moist. They abhor the sun, so one way to make them admit defeat is to let the sun in anyway that you can.

If you are not keen to trim back your plants, you can set out some cabbage leaves and orange rinds in your garden at dusk and the slugs and snails will gather at this buffet table.

In the morning, using a pair of gloves, gather up the diners and what is left of the feast, and drop the whole thing in a bucket of warm water laced with either; table salt, baking soda or vinegar.

B is for Beneficial:

Beetles, bees, beneficial nematodes, bats, all of these are important to the health of your soil and your plants. You can plant foliage to attract these beneficial agents to your garden. You can install bat boxes high in your trees. One bat is capable of eating hundreds of mosquitoes and gnats in just minutes.

Do your research carefully first.

Whatever bugs you in your garden or your home- do your research carefully before picking up your weapon of choice to fight the invasion.

An excellent book that is full of natural pest control and remedies to fight off bugs is Jerry Baker’s Bug Off!

Remember that part of you vowing to live the organic life, is to protect the earth. You can begin to do this starting with your own parcel of land and tend to its needs carefully.