Pest Controls

Organic pest controls along with natural remedies are the best to use for your outdoor vegetable gardens and fruit orchards. There are several natural pest controls that will work very well to eliminate those nasty pests inside your home. A good healthy soil in your garden will allow Mother Nature to care for itself; it allows your plants to use their inbred abilities to repel harmful conditions.

When you use insecticides there will always be part that will remain in your garden soil and your garden in the following year ends up soaking up those chemicals and passing it on to your new plants during the growth period. Now you have another problem with insects so you decide to spray with more chemical insecticides and the process gets passed on again year after year. The portion of chemicals that gets washed with watering, rainfall, or snowmelt ends up in our lakes, rivers, and streams polluting the water that our wildlife drinks weakening their immune systems and possibly causing birth defects. Many of these lakes are also used as reservoirs for our personal water consumption. These insecticides are also harmful to the good insects or beneficial insects.

Healthy plants generally are not prone to insect infestations and here a few tips to help you keep those plants as healthy as possible: First, prepare your soil for the crop or crops you wish to grow taking into consideration the soil and requirements for growth for that particular crop. Be sure you have the proper mixture of the nutrients for the health of those plants along with the proper pH level. It is always best to check the pH level in the fall and not in the spring; there are certain soil amendments that need to be added during the fall. Second, be sure the organic matter, manure, or compost you use is completely rotted before using; if it is not fully decomposed it may contain an insect infestation that was not fully eradicated. Finally, rotate your crops every year to a new area of your garden. Some crops do very poorly if you plant them in an area where a crop of the same family previously grew.  

Outdoor pest controls include helpful predators such as dragon flies, frogs, ladybugs, praying mantis, and spiders; these are some of the beneficial insects and creatures that will help reduce pest problems. Box turtles, ducks, firefly or lightning bug larvae, grass snakes, ground beetles, and salamanders will feed on snails and slugs. Diatomaceous earth is a non-toxic product that will also take care of slugs, snails, and earwigs. Insects can be trapped by using "goo" which is a mixture of equal parts liquid soap, mineral oil, and petroleum jelly. An herbal tea spray, a mixture of a gallon of water with clippings from your most fragrant herbs, such as basil, and brewed as you would sun tea, for about a week. Once the brewing is finished remove the herbs and add two tablespoons liquid soap and keep the mixture in a spray bottle. The "tea" brewed with basil works well on aphids, beetles, cabbage loopers, leaf-hoppers, or mites. Dragonflies and praying mantis will also help prevent mosquitoes along with making sure there are no stagnant pools of water around your garden.

Indoor organic pest controls are just a little different than the outdoor remedies. To control ants wash your countertops, cabinets, and floor with equal amounts of water and vinegar. You can also mix 2 cups borax and 1 cup flour in a quart jar; then punch holes in the jar's lid and sprinkle the contents around the foundation of your house but make sure to keep the borax out of children's reach and away from pets. If you find where the ants are coming in, create a barrier of powdered charcoal or bone meal, the ants will not cross this line. You can also squeeze the juice from a lemon into the crack or hole of their entrance and then leave the lemon peelings around that entrance.  

Flies can also be very pesky inside your home. It is best to keep your kitchen trash tightly closed or better yet place those vegetable and fruit remnants into a kitchen compost pail that is also sealed tightly. Try scratching the skin of an orange and leave it on the counter, the smell of citrus will act as a repellent, or if you prefer, hang a group of gloves to drive them away. Flies also do not like mint or basil so you may want to start a new kitchen garden of herbs.

Now matter what type of pest controls you use just make sure it is environmentally safe and will not harm any of your fruits and vegetables or humans and pets. Your outside gardens and backyards will always benefit from natural or organic products. The main idea is to stay away from any and all chemical pest controls.