Be Prepared for Garden Pests – Ep. 245

[00:00:00] Hello my gardening friends. Today we are diving into a topic that sneaks up on just about every gardener at some point. Pests. Whether they're crawling or flying or trotting in on four legs, pests can very quickly turn a thriving garden into a frustrated gardener's absolute nightmare. But there is good news. You do not have to reach for synthetic pesticides to protect your plants. Today on Just Grow Something, we're talking all about preparing your garden before the pests show up.

[00:00:28] Using methods that keep your crops safe while still protecting pollinators and beneficial insects. We'll cover physical barriers, companion planting, organic sprays, soil health, and even a few tips for keeping the bunnies and the deer at bay. Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and horticulturist, I want to help you do the same. On this podcast, I am your friend in the garden.

[00:00:56] Teaching evidence-based techniques to help you grow your favorites and build confidence in your own garden space. So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something. Before we dig into all the pests that also want to destroy our gardens, I want to follow up to the most recent composting episode I did with an email that I got from Kathy Carruthers that was very thought-provoking.

[00:01:25] And it's likely pertinent to a lot of you who are listening today. Kathy wrote, Hi Karen, I was listening to your podcast on composting and thinking about all the people who compost their chicken litter. I used to also. But then I read an article and couldn't anymore. Their doo-doo is almost as bad as the pups and kitties or ours. This article is more recent. But if you dig a trench a few feet deep and dump it in there and build a bed on top of it, the bed will perform really well for a few years.

[00:01:53] Given the level of gross, and in parentheses parasitic worms, maybe don't grow root crops. And if you need help turning your compost pile, the chickens will totally help you out with that. They'll also weed the beds and do a light rototill between seasons. I know, I kind of contradicted myself here, Kathy. Okay, so yeah, she was kind of all over the place. But the gist of it was an article that she linked to that was actually a published paper that was essentially a meta-analysis of other studies.

[00:02:23] So essentially it was a review and it was titled, How Safe is Chicken Litter for Land Application as an Organic Fertilizer? And I will link to that in the show notes if you choose to go peruse through it. Now, this article caused me to do a deep dive into a ton of other stories and I will, or not stories, studies. And I will spare you the rabbit hole that I went down.

[00:02:47] But I wanted to touch on the highlights because I think there were some very important points that were made. The first thing to know is that we're not talking about home composting of chicken manure in any of these studies. All of these studies were done on commercial operations, mostly broiler hens, or not broiler birds. So we're talking confinement.

[00:03:13] We're talking thousands and thousands of birds all housed together in the same location. Some of them were layer operations. But again, you know, the conditions that these hens are being raised in is not very similar to what we do at home. To define chicken litter, we're talking about the combination of bedding materials, manure, droppings, feathers, and any other organic matter that is in those chicken coops or on those poultry farms, right?

[00:03:41] The commercial use of this, what they refer to as chicken litter, means that the litter is incorporated into the soil before planting or it is used as a top dressing during the growing season. We generally are not looking at it being actually composted before being used.

[00:04:03] It might be aged in terms of it's been sitting in a giant pile outside, you know, some of these houses before being spread, but it's not necessarily composted. There are specific requirements in the Food Safety Modernization Act for how long or how soon after manure is applied to a field that an edible crop can be harvested.

[00:04:33] Okay, let me say that again. The Food Safety Modernization Act was put in place to help with some of these issues that we have been seeing like E. coli outbreaks and that sort of thing. And there are some requirements that were put in place for, you know, this is when or how you can apply manure to a field where an edible crop is being grown and how long you have to wait between that manure being applied and being able to harvest that crop. That's great.

[00:05:02] But there are no requirements for how long that manure needs to be aged before it is applied, much less composted, right? So it can be coming straight from the barn and being put out into the field. And then there's just a matter of time that they have to wait before they can harvest an edible crop out of there. And that depends on whether or not it's a root vegetable or an above ground crop. So is it any wonder that we are having E. coli outbreaks? Yes, chicken litter and all of these other types of animal manures are very, very nutritious for our soil.

[00:05:32] They are great for vegetable production. It's also a really good way to kind of recycle a lot of the stuff that is being used in one industry, one operation, meaning whether that's eggs or that's actual chicken itself, and using that byproduct as a way to also improve another product. That's fantastic. But the key safety concerns in all of these studies of chicken litter are its contamination with pathogens,

[00:06:02] so things like bacteria and fungi, parasites, viruses. They were also looking at antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes. There was also concern about growth hormones such as egg and meat boosters and then heavy metals that are present in the feed itself and pesticides. Most of these things are not concerns in home flocks because our feed sources are different. We generally are not giving our birds antibiotics on a regular basis.

[00:06:30] They're not in heavy confinement, so the load of parasites in the litter is going to be way reduced over a commercial flock. So do I think the concerns are there at the same level they would be in a commercial entity? No. But with all that being said, it is still a concern for home gardeners using our own chicken litter or that of our neighbors or whatever, whether it's been composted or not.

[00:06:58] This is because chickens are omnivores, which means they eat both meat and vegetables. If you've ever seen a chicken chase a mouse, you know this to be true. They are little tiny dinosaurs. But they are omnivores just like our cats and our dogs and even pigs. So this means that they are susceptible to a different type of load of parasites and other icky things than strict herbivores like cattle and rabbits and sheep are.

[00:07:27] So that means that if the litter isn't handled correctly, i.e. it is composted properly, then there is a chance that those icky things could end up in our soil. Do I think it's a high chance? No. Is it going to stop me from using my chicken manure in my garden? Also no. When we get a new planter box direct planter, I typically fill the bottom six inches of that planter with litter from our coops.

[00:07:55] And then the next foot or so of material consists of fallen leaves and finished compost and soil amendments and a layer of potting soil on the top. So this allows that chicken litter all the way down the bottom to break down slowly underneath, composting in place. And that releases the nutrients that make their way up through the soil and eventually to the roots. And it's a fabulous way to use that litter and also feed the plants. And I am going to continue to do this.

[00:08:19] But will I add my chicken litter to my compost pile going forward? Maybe. If I can't track the temperature of that compost pile, making sure that it is getting hot enough to kill off a lot of those pathogens, I may not add my chicken litter to that pile because I'm not sure if it's getting hot enough to kill off any of the bad buggies that I don't want in there.

[00:08:45] Conversely to this, I use a pelletized chicken manure as a fertilizer here on the farm. It's a combination of chicken manure or chicken litter from layer houses that has been superheated. Superheated. And it's added or it has alfalfa meal and kelp meal, I believe, added to it as well. And it's all kind of pelletized. And then it's being used as like a fertilizer, as a natural fertilizer.

[00:09:15] I will continue to use that too because I know it's being heated. I know it's all being cooked. So I think here's what the bottom line is. Whether or not you compost your chicken litter is going to depend on how confident you are in the health of your flock and how you manage your compost pile. If you're not comfortable with that, then bury the manure somewhere and call it good. Otherwise, continue on as you have been. Thank you to Kathy for sending over some very insightful information for all of us

[00:09:44] and giving us all some food for thought because, yeah, food safety still needs to be our number one priority. Okay, so let's talk about preparing our garden for the inevitable pests that very well may find us. The first thing we can talk about is physical barriers. This is always, always, always one of my first lines of defense. It's one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent pest damage,

[00:10:13] and that is to physically keep them out. And this works for both insects and animals as well. So you can choose to use a number of things. If you are in an area that stays fairly cold in the early part of the spring, you might use the lightest weight of row cover you can find, like an Agrabond 15. They are actually marketed as insect fabric.

[00:10:42] It's just another type of a floating row fabric, just like we use for our frost cloths, but it's very, very thin. And it's really good for keeping out flea beetles and cabbage worms and vine borers and all these kinds of things. They let in the water, they let in the light, and they let out the air, or they let in the air, but they block insects. The problem that they don't let out, is what I was trying to say, is the heat. So I can't really use those for very long in the spring.

[00:11:08] I can use it very, very early on if I'm trying to get some stuff in super early, and it needs to be protected from some frost. But after a while, when it starts to get real warm, it just traps that heat under there. So my preference is actual insect netting. I talk about this all the time. And all these things that we're going to talk about today, I will link to in the show notes, so you can go and easily see what it is that I'm looking for. And if it's something that I use, I will link to the ones that I specifically purchase. Insect netting is my favorite.

[00:11:38] It is, you know, it's a mesh. So the mesh needs to be small enough to keep out whatever it is that your particular pests are. So for me, I generally don't have a problem with thrips. So I don't have to get the super, super fine woven stuff, which can be a little bit more expensive. So if you don't need it, you don't have to use it. All of these, the texture is very much like tulle. And honestly, you can use tulle. If you happen to have a lot of fabric left over from a wedding or something,

[00:12:06] then yeah, by all means, go ahead and use tulle. As long as it's, you know, those, the little holes are small enough to keep out what you're trying to keep out. Just, and I do this immediately. Like as soon as something gets planted, it is getting that, that cover over top of it. Not just for the insect pests, but also for animals. It also keeps out the deer and the bunnies and whatever else. So long as it is, it is locked down tight enough to the soil. So I use insect netting over just about everything.

[00:12:35] You just have to remember, if your crop needs pollination, like squash or cucumbers, you will need to uncover those plants. And you can either do this by just completely uncovering it and, okay, now it's fair game. You know, which hopefully you have some companion plants in there, which we'll talk about here in a minute. Or you can just uncover the plants during the day, once those flowers start to appear, and then go back and cover it up at night. You can even go so far as to uncover it during the day, and when you go out in the evening to cover it back up again,

[00:13:04] spraying them down, hosing them down, trying to knock off any of those insect pests that you might not see, or just doing a visual inspection and taking off any of those insects, and then covering it back up again for the nighttime, so that at least you're keeping out the nighttime invaders. The other option is to keep it on there all the time, but then you have to hand pollinate underneath the cover. So just know that if your crop needs pollination, you may only be able to protect them with the insect netting for, you know, a certain amount of time.

[00:13:33] So other than covering each individual bed, when we're talking about keeping animal pests out, then fencing is going to be your next best option. Now, if you can manage to put a three or four foot fence around your garden area, that's going to help with like rabbits and other kind of lower crawling critters. But if you are trying to deter deer, then your setup needs to be probably seven to eight foot tall. And honestly, most of us don't want to mess with that.

[00:14:01] So your other option here is to do a double layer of that three to four foot fence, but space them about three to five feet apart. So a perimeter fence, and then about three feet in, put a second fence. That's going to be a lower fence, but also visually it tends to disrupt the deer. They can't jump all the way across that huge gap, and so they're less likely to actually jump over it. And then if we're talking about things like voles,

[00:14:29] and we're even cutworms too, this works for, but you can actually put collars around the base of young seedlings to prevent the voles and the cutworms from getting to them. I tend to, when I really need to, I will use toilet paper rolls, the empty toilet paper rolls, and just cut them in half and then put them around the base of the plants because they're biodegradable. I don't have to worry about it. I can just collect them throughout the season and, you know, just use them then. There are people who have used hardware cloth

[00:14:57] and made collars out of the hardware cloth, but to me that means you have to go back out there and you have to take it up and then you have to store them, and I'm not about that. So I tend to just use paper towel or toilet paper rolls. But if you have like burrowing animals, you can also use underground barriers, basically beneath raised beds. So if you have a raised bed, when you put it down and you know you have gophers, then you can use hardware cloth in the bottom of the bed before you create it.

[00:15:27] But if you're gardening in ground, they have things called gopher baskets. And it's essentially the same thing. It's that mesh hardware cloth, but it's in the shape of a basket. And you dig your hole and you put the basket in there and then you fill it back in with your potting soil or your garden soil and the plant that you're planting. And it protects those roots from the gophers eating from the bottom. So, I mean, they can probably be pretty pricey. I think two of them goes for like eight or ten bucks, something like that.

[00:15:57] So, but it's a, you know, a solution that you can reuse over and over again. So that's a solution if gophers are really a problem. The other way to deter animal pests is one that I kind of think is fun, but you have to really do this one ahead of time. And this is motion sensing sprinklers or even solar powered lights that have movement triggers. So any of those things that like the suddenly the lights come on

[00:16:25] or suddenly the sprinklers come on, these are things that are going to kind of scare away those larger pests like raccoons and deer. In most instances, we have some pretty brave raccoons around here. So it might not always work on them, but it should definitely work on the rabbits. And a lot of the time it works on the deer too. So that's another way to physically barricade your garden from the four-footed animal pests. Okay, the next technique is companion planting.

[00:16:52] All right, strategic planting can make your garden less appealing to pests or even attract their natural enemies. We're going to go into this in detail over the next couple of weeks in terms of companion planting and interplanting. But for now, we're just going to talk about some of the basics. And the first thing is like using strong scented herbs. So basil, rosemary, thyme. These are things that can deter some pests like aphids and whiteflies. So if you interplant them among your vegetables,

[00:17:21] it can actually help to disrupt that insect detection. Um, marigolds. We're going to talk about this in detail next week. But marigolds do emit a chemical from their roots that can suppress nematodes in the soil if that is a problem for you. So if you have root-knot nematodes in your tomatoes, for example, then yes, planting marigolds is actually going to help with that. Marigolds can also repel some above-ground pests. They can also attract some above-ground pests.

[00:17:50] So how you use marigolds in your companion planting is going to depend on whether or not you're using it as a deterrent or if you're using it as like a trap crop or something to draw pests away. Um, trap cropping is another smart strategy here. You can plant a preferred host near whatever it is that you're growing to help draw things away. So for example, nasturtiums really like, or aphids really like nasturtiums.

[00:18:19] So if you have an aphid problem in a particular crop, then you can plant nasturtiums a little bit away from it. And that is going to draw the aphids away from your main crop. So these are all different types of like companion planting. And again, we're going to go into that a little bit more next week. Then we have intercropping or interplanting. And this is a little bit more than just companion planting. When you think traditionally in terms of companion planting,

[00:18:46] I think the notion is, well, this plant does something specific to help protect this specific plant. Interplanting or intercropping is a little bit different from that. We're talking about mixing plant families together. And what this can do is confuse the chemical and visual signals that insects use to find their host plant, which makes it more difficult for them to predate on your crop.

[00:19:13] So typically speaking, when I plant my brassicas, I also plant them with onions and lettuce and alyssum. Plus, I am putting insect netting over the top. I am giving a physical barrier to the cabbage moths and the cabbage butterfly that always, always, always want to lay their eggs in my brassica crops.

[00:19:38] And I am also sort of masking what is going on with that host plant, the host plant being, say, my cabbage, by planting onions near them, which give off a very particular scent and it gives off sulfur, right? Which is going to confuse that signal. But then also lettuce, which is different looking than the cabbage. And then alyssum, which is also another one that is different, but it's also flowering, so it brings in some of the good insects.

[00:20:06] So in this instance, we are masking and not repelling. There is also the appropriate and inappropriate landings theory. The appropriate inappropriate landing theory says that pests follow a three-step process when selecting a host plant, traveling to an area with the host plant by following specific odors, using visual stimuli,

[00:20:34] such as appearance, color, and size, to land on a plant surface, and making a few short flights to neighboring leaves. To be successful, the insect must make consecutive appropriate landings on a host plant to stimulate egg laying. Non-host or inappropriate landings reset the egg laying process. Researchers noted that flying pests made several test landings on plants before deciding it was a good place to lay their eggs. In fact,

[00:21:03] they needed a specific number of appropriate landings on the foliage of their target plant before the egg laying process was stimulated. So when interplanting non-host plants together with host plants, in other words, mixing the species up like I do with my brassicas, the pests will end up making an occasional landing on a non-host plant, and that throws off the likelihood they will be stimulated to lay their eggs. Now, it should also be noted in these studies

[00:21:33] that the researchers saw that when crops were grown on bare soil, the insects laid their eggs 36% of the time. Compare that to when those host plants were surrounded by companion plants, where the insects laid eggs only 7% of the time. So not only does this show us that growing our plants in a monoculture is, again, a bad idea, it also shows us that mulch

[00:22:03] here, once again, is our friend. See? I'm always talking about mulch. Now, keep in mind, companion planting isn't a silver bullet, and I think we need to be very specific about what we plant together if we have a particularly ruthless pest, like squash vine borers or squash bugs. So in the instance that we have a very pervasive problem, I think we need to be mindful of not just the life cycles of those pests and the timing

[00:22:33] for the maturity of our host crop and their companions. It's going to take some experimenting, but I still maintain that companion planting and intercropping are powerful additions to a diverse garden ecosystem that can also help deter pests. I have been very impressed with how my new rosebush from Heirloom Roses has continued to fully leaf out after spending all winter in its pot outside in our harsh Missouri weather. I think the reason it has done so well is because

[00:23:03] it's not a grafted plant. By choosing own root roses, you're making a smart choice for the long-term health and beauty of your garden. While grafted roses may be the easy option, they come with hidden risks. The grafting points can make them more vulnerable to disease and winter damage, typically shortening their lifespan to around 15 years. Own root roses, though, have strong natural root systems that make them more resilient and better equipped to handle

[00:23:32] challenging conditions like our west-central Missouri winters, even in a container. Many of these roses can thrive for 50 years or more, providing lasting beauty to our landscapes. At Heirloom Roses, they focus on growing healthy, true-to-variety roses that are naturally strong and resilient. By choosing own root roses, we're creating a garden that will continue to thrive and bloom year after year, providing lasting beauty. Get your own root roses by going to heirloomroses.com

[00:24:02] and use code JUSTGROW at checkout to save 20% on your new rosebush. heirloomroses.com with code JUSTGROW. The link is in the show notes. Okay, the next thing we can use to be prepared for garden pests is organic sprays and soil amendments. So there are a lot of organic approved treatments that can help with pest problems, but the timing and the technique matter because we do not want to be doing more harm than good or we don't want to be harming the beneficial insects while we're trying to get rid of the ones

[00:24:32] that we don't want. So the first one we can look at is insecticidal soaps and oils. These are very effective against soft-bodied insects like aphids and spider mites and white flies. It is important to apply these early in the morning or late in the day to avoid direct sun which can cause leaf burn and also to reduce that exposure to the pollinators. We also do not want to spray insecticidal soaps on flowers where the bees might be foraging and if we can we want to direct

[00:25:02] the spray at the insect pests themselves when possible instead of blanketing the entire plant unless the entire plant is basically infested and then by all means go for it. You can buy insecticidal soaps or you can make your own. If you mix one to two tablespoons of pure liquid soap and no we are not talking about dish soap here. Dish soap is not soap. It's actually a detergent. We want a liquid soap like a Castile soap. So one to two tablespoons

[00:25:31] per quart of water. Additionally, you can add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to this a little bit more sticky. Shake the bottle up to combine the mixture and you can use that just on its own. If you want a little boost to this you can also add some other like pest deterring ingredients so apple cider vinegar, ground red pepper, garlic powder. I have used rosemary oil and mint oil just to make this a little bit more effective.

[00:26:01] Your second one would be neem oil. This disrupts the life cycle of a lot of different pests but it can also affect beneficials if it's overused. So you want to apply neem oil only when necessary and you want to target your problem areas. Make sure that you are following the directions on this. The next one would be BT. This is Bacillus thuringiensis. This is a naturally occurring bacterium that is found in soils and on plant leaves worldwide. It produces proteins that are toxic to certain

[00:26:31] insect larvae which is how we use it as a biopesticide. It targets caterpillar pests like cabbage worms and tomato hornworms. It is harmless to birds and bees and mammals but again we want targeted application. We don't want to use this broadly. Another one is spinosad. This is another naturally occurring soil dwelling bacterium. It was collected on a Caribbean island somewhere in the early 1980s. It's the only place that it naturally occurs. Spinosad controls

[00:27:01] all stages of bagworms, beetles, mites, caterpillars, thrips, leaf miners, coddling moss, a whole bunch of different ones. This is another one that is also safe for beneficials but only after it has had a chance to dry. So this is one that you want to spray at dusk and allow it to dry on the leaves overnight to avoid harming anything else. It will kill a bee if it is sprayed directly on it so make sure that you are being very thoughtful about when you spray these things. Generally speaking between the hours

[00:27:31] of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. are our peak pollinator time so you want to be spraying these things before or after those times. Another one is diatomaceous earth. This can be useful around the bases of plants for crawling pests. Essentially it kind of cuts their exoskeleton. It is only effective when it is dry and it can also affect beneficial insects so make sure that you are using it selectively and try not to do it during blooming periods and you also are going

[00:28:00] to have to reapply it after a rainfall. Another one that I have used in a similar manner is first Saturday lime. It is also drying to insects. It is, if I remember correctly, it is not water soluble so you don't have to reapply it every single time it rains and it tends to be a little bit safer than DE in terms of like breathing because there aren't any sharp edges to it but again you know you just kind of have to be selective about the way that you use these things. And then finally

[00:28:29] let's look at soil health amendments. healthy plants are naturally just more resistant to pests so in addition to all of these other things that we're talking about we should be trying to maintain balanced nutrients in our soil that can help to reduce insect attraction right? We should be adding compost we should be mulching again with the mulch all of these things are going to improve the ability of our plants to resist

[00:28:59] the insects but also to be more resilient if they do have insects come in and predate on them they're going to bounce back faster the healthier they are so we should always always be focusing on our soil health but even more so in terms of being prepared for garden pests or to keep garden pests away so sometimes the best pest control is simply based on how we plant our gardens so succession planting this is going to reduce the window of vulnerability I've talked

[00:29:29] about this before in terms of battling like squash bugs and vine borers and cucumber beetles in our squashes if one crop gets hit the next one may escape damage entirely depending on the life cycle of the insect that you're battling so if you can do succession plantings in your area if you have a window of time that's long enough in your gardening which I recognize a lot of us don't but if you do you can plant an early crop and a mid-season crop and a late crop of the same crop and the hope there

[00:29:58] is that you know that crop is only going to be vulnerable during a specific window of time this does work depending on the pest so something like a squash bug this is not going to work for because squash bugs over winter as adults they come out and immediately begin to reproduce and they will continue to reproduce over and over again all the way through until you have your first frost in the fall so in this way succession planting is just a way to try to keep up with the pest damage

[00:30:28] in terms of something like the squash vine borer they do have a very specific window of reproduction where they're flying around and laying their eggs and once that's done that's done and the rest of the season you are free of that pest so if the vine borer is your main problem then maybe you don't plant anything at all in that family early in the season and you wait until the end of July to plant those susceptible plants and thereby you have closed that window of vulnerability and you have no

[00:30:58] problem getting a crop the other thing is again that diverse planting we already talked about it in intercropping mixing those crop types mixing the growth stages this helps to prevent pest populations from establishing because we're not growing in a monoculture we want everything growing together I know I know for some of this this is really hard to get past it took me a really long time to sort of get beyond this idea where everything should be grown in a nice neat row

[00:31:27] and this should only be this crop and this should only be this crop over it just isn't going to be linear and we don't want one crop all by itself ever okay the other thing too is

[00:31:57] crop rotation so this absolutely will help disrupt pest life cycles especially for soil borne insects and also soil borne diseases but I understand that it is very difficult for a lot of home gardeners to be able to actually truly accomplish crop rotation because a lot of us are gardening in very small spaces so do you have to rotate your crops all the time no I know that's an unpopular opinion but especially coming from the farming side

[00:32:27] of things where crop rotation is like beat into your brain yes you absolutely have to rotate again if we're not growing things in a monoculture there is less likelihood that specific pests are going to build up in the soil and specific diseases so if you are gardening in a very small space and you have not seen any sign of soil borne pests or diseases then you likely don't have to worry as much about crop rotation should you grow the same thing over and over again in the same bed year after year after year no but do

[00:32:57] have to move it every single year and leave it where it's three years before you plant something your option may end up being just not growing that crop this year or for a couple of years to break that life cycle we did that with squash we were

[00:33:26] so overwhelmed with the squash pest that we took it was either one year or two years off completely from growing zucchinis and summer squashes and winter squashes anything in that family just to break the cycle so that might be your only option if you need to disrupt a pest life cycle otherwise yes practice crop rotation as you can and of course we want to scout early and often so we want to be looking under the leaves we want

[00:33:56] to check the stems and the soil and watch for early signs of trouble if we catch a problem before it spreads it is always easier than pollination if you are growing flowering crops that need pollination specifically squash or melons that are insect pollinated not wind pollinated then we're going to need to strike a balance a little bit in terms of protecting those crops while

[00:34:26] also encouraging those pollinators to come in and do their jobs so those removable row covers again pulling those back during flowering or the other option which is hand pollinating while they're still protected I guess it really just depends on how important that crop is to you if you are somebody who relies on zucchini you guys eat a lot of zucchini in your kitchen fresh you freeze a lot of it for the off season and this is something that you really need to come in then you might be willing to hand

[00:34:56] pollinate if that's the only way you get that crop the other thing is to just be vigilant in checking for those pests if you start and you as soon as you plant you're checking daily or every other day every evening whatever it is for those pests then you are more likely to keep them at bay or at least keep them in check so that they're not taking over the plant and again if you have very healthy soil and you have very healthy plants those plants are going to be able to stand up to some of pests

[00:35:26] now something that I'm considering trying this year as an experiment is using some mesh netting with slightly larger holes so very similar to the insect netting that I am currently using but something that is a little bit larger that is small enough to block the squash bugs while also allowing the smaller in there so I'm not going to do this over my whole crop because it

[00:35:56] could be disastrous but I'm going to take one small section of my squashes and try this out and see if I can strike a little bit more more an even balance here where I'm keeping out the majority of the major pests so that would be the squash bug and the vine borer but still allowing those smaller pollinators access I do have cucumber beetles and they would likely be able to get in through these holes that I'm thinking about but they are less of a problem in my squashes than they are like in my actual cucumbers

[00:36:26] and believe it or not cucumber beetles can actually sometimes act as pollinators in squash because they get right into the flowers but give that a shot I will certainly report back and let you know in the meantime we still do want to encourage all of those native pollinators so we want to plant

[00:36:56] those bee friendly flowers nearby we don't want to spray anything even if it's organic during our peak bee activity between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. because of course pollinators are essential allies in the garden and so we want to protect them as fiercely as we are our garden being proactive with pest management and being prepared ahead of time is all about observation and preparation and just balance so we should be using physical

[00:37:25] barriers planning out our plantings supporting our soil health and also applying those organic controls thoughtfully so that we can have a productive garden without reaching for synthetic chemicals are there some instances where it just may be necessary for you to spray something that you otherwise wouldn't sure absolutely if you have gotten into a situation where you have a crop that you are relying on and nothing you're doing is working and you have to resort

[00:37:55] to something that is synthetic okay you know what give yourself the permission to do that here's the thing about the prevalence of these synthetic chemicals it is the overuse of these synthetic chemicals so I will never take a hard line and tell somebody you should never do something in your own garden if you are trying to feed your family and you are doing that in the best way you possibly can and you have tried everything else to be

[00:38:25] able to get rid of these garden pests and you are at your end and it is your last resort then fine use a chemical that is your last resort use it responsibly use it according to the label remember the label is the law we want to make sure that we are using it to where it is effective and it is not going to cause issues with causing resistant insects to develop this happens when you overuse or underuse so make sure you're following the directions and then try to find ways where

[00:38:55] you can improve it for the next season so your garden is a living system so what works one year may need tweaking the next this is where good notes comes into play staying curious not being afraid to experiment with things don't beat yourself up if it doesn't work we are manipulating mother nature and that doesn't always go in our favor so if you have had success with a particular pest management strategy that goes for a

[00:39:25] particular pest that maybe I don't talk about I know I talk about squash bugs and vine boars and cucumber beetles a lot because those are the things that are the bane of my existence in my garden those are the things that I am most worried about do I occasionally have aphid problems yes but they are rare and I generally can take care of them without a problem so I would love to hear from you drop me a message tag me on social media and tell me what pests it is that you have traditionally had to battle and any success that you

[00:40:09] so until next time my gardening friends keep on cultivating that dream garden and we'll talk again soon