Introduction: How to Control Pest Insects in Your Garden Using Your Garden
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About: I'm a friendly project starter. My love is the earth and sustainable inovations. My job is IT consulting. When these powers combine, I form something not nearly as interesting as Captain Planet!
How frustrating is it when you put so much work and effort into a garden, and then like out of nowhere, your plants are nearly ruined from insects munching on them? I’m going to explain how you can control the insects that feed on your precious crops.
Step 1: Blossom!
The key to controlling insects is not pesticide. Pesticide will kill all the beneficial insects and microbes as well. The key is flowers. The effect of the flowers is at least three fold. They confuses insects that will attack your plants, they attract predatory insects, which are also pollinators.
Step 2: Diversify!
The important thing is variety. Scatter your flowers throughout your garden. When I say that, obviously you want to plan so they will be good companions to your other plants, but you want flowers growing along with your vegitables.
Here’s some flowers and plants I would recommend planting:
The cool thing too is that everything I’ve suggested is edible! However, be warned that not every part of the plants I’ve suggested are edible. Do your research. There’s tons of info out there.
Here’s some flowers and plants I would recommend planting:
- A few marigolds (which are good with tomatoes)
- Borage is amazing for attracting bees (give it some space it will spread)
- Sunflowers and bird houses and feeders will attract birds (a bad thing if you have seeds starting, but a great thing if your plants are semi-established (birds will eat the bugs too)
- Herbs like basil, bee balm, catnip, dill, Echinacea, evening primrose, fennel, lavender, parsley, poppy, thyme and sage will all attract pollinators too.
- Check out this site too. It has some great information for specific insects
The cool thing too is that everything I’ve suggested is edible! However, be warned that not every part of the plants I’ve suggested are edible. Do your research. There’s tons of info out there.
Step 3: A Bonus Method
bee houses!
Some other things you could try is making a bee block. This will help support the bee population and give them a home right beside your garden!
They’re as easy as drilling some holes in a block of wood.
https://www.instructables.com/id/mason-bee-hotel/
Let me know what you do to control insects. Also let me know if you’ve tried any of these suggestions before and how they worked for you.
If you liked this, check out my blog and leave a comment or ten at http://starterpermaculture.com
Connect with me on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/starterpermie
Thanks for reading!
Some other things you could try is making a bee block. This will help support the bee population and give them a home right beside your garden!
They’re as easy as drilling some holes in a block of wood.
https://www.instructables.com/id/mason-bee-hotel/
Let me know what you do to control insects. Also let me know if you’ve tried any of these suggestions before and how they worked for you.
If you liked this, check out my blog and leave a comment or ten at http://starterpermaculture.com
Connect with me on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/starterpermie
Thanks for reading!
