Today, we’re diving into a topic that sneaks up on every gardener at some point—pests. Whether they’re crawling, flying, or trotting in on four legs, pests can quickly turn a thriving garden into a frustrated gardener’s nightmare.But here’s the good news: you don’t 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—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 deer at bay.Let’s dig in!
References and Resources:
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The influence of host and non‐host companion plants on the behaviour of pest insects in field crops
Pest management tools:
insect netting: https://amzn.to/3XXMxN3
hardware cloth: https://amzn.to/4idDfUo
gopher baskets: https://amzn.to/3YwFiM6
insecticidal soap: https://amzn.to/3Gl50wU
neem oil: https://amzn.to/4jczBeS
Spinosad: https://amzn.to/4cxt1Nh
First Saturday Lime: https://amzn.to/4j4iWtP
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00:00:00
Hello my gardening friends. Today we are diving into a topic
00:00:03
that sneaks up on just about every gardener at some point.
00:00:06
Pests. Whether they're crawling or
00:00:09
flying or trotting in on 4 legs, pests can very quickly turn a
00:00:13
thriving garden into a frustrated gardeners absolute
00:00:16
nightmare. But there is good news.
00:00:19
You do not have to reach for synthetic pesticides to protect
00:00:21
your plants today and just grow something.
00:00:23
We're talking all about preparing your garden before the
00:00:27
pests show up, using methods that keep keep your crops safe
00:00:31
while still protecting pollinators and beneficial
00:00:33
insects. We'll cover physical barriers,
00:00:35
companion planting, organic sprays, soil health, and even a
00:00:39
few tips for keeping the bunnies and the deer at Bay.
00:00:42
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen, and what started
00:00:44
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
00:00:48
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
00:00:51
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
00:00:53
On this podcast, I am your friend in the garden teaching
00:00:57
evidence based techniques to help you grow your favorites and
00:00:59
build confidence in your own garden space.
00:01:02
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
00:01:05
just grow something. Before we dig into all the pests
00:01:13
that also want to destroy our gardens, I want to follow up to
00:01:17
the most recent composting episode I did with an e-mail
00:01:21
that I got from Kathy Carruthers.
00:01:23
That was very thought provoking and it's likely pertinent to a
00:01:26
lot of you who are listening today.
00:01:28
Kathy wrote. Hi Karen.
00:01:30
I was listening to your podcast on composting and thinking about
00:01:33
all the people who compost their chicken litter.
00:01:35
I used to also but then I read an article and couldn't anymore.
00:01:40
Their do do is almost as bad as the pups and kitties or ours.
00:01:45
This article is more recent, but if you dig a trench a few feet
00:01:49
deep and dump it in there and build a bed on top of it, the
00:01:51
bed will perform really well for a few years.
00:01:54
Given the level of gross in in parentheses, parasitic worms
00:01:58
maybe don't grow root crops. And if you need help turning
00:02:01
your compost pile, the chickens will totally help you out with
00:02:03
that. They'll also weed the beds and
00:02:05
do a light rototil between seasons.
00:02:07
I know I kind of contradicted myself here, Kathy.
00:02:10
OK, So yeah, she was kind of all over the place.
00:02:13
But the gist of it was an article that she linked to that
00:02:16
was actually a published paper that was essentially a meta
00:02:21
analysis of other studies. So essentially it was a review
00:02:24
and it was titled How safe is chicken litter for land
00:02:27
application as an organic fertilizer?
00:02:30
And I will link to that in the show notes if you choose to go
00:02:33
peruse through it. Now, this article caused me to
00:02:37
do a deep dive into a ton of other stories and I will or not
00:02:42
stories studies, and I will spare you the rabbit hole that I
00:02:46
went down, but I wanted to touch on the highlights because I
00:02:50
think there were some very important points that were made.
00:02:55
The first thing to know is that we're not talking about home
00:02:59
composting of chicken manure in any of these studies.
00:03:02
All of these studies were done on commercial operations, mostly
00:03:07
broiler hens or not broiler birds.
00:03:10
So we're talking confinement. We're talking thousands and
00:03:15
thousands of birds all housed together in the same location.
00:03:19
Some of them were layer operations, but again, you know,
00:03:22
the conditions that these hens are being raised is not very
00:03:26
similar to what we do at home to define chicken litter.
00:03:30
We're talking about the combination of bedding
00:03:33
materials, manure, droppings, feathers and any other organic
00:03:37
matter that is in those chicken coops or on those poultry farms,
00:03:40
right? The commercial use of this, what
00:03:45
they refer to as chicken litter, means that the litter is
00:03:50
incorporated into the soil before planting or it is used as
00:03:55
a top dressing during the growing season.
00:03:58
We generally are not looking at it being actually composted
00:04:02
before being used. It might be aged in terms of
00:04:06
it's been sitting in a giant pile outside, you know some of
00:04:09
these houses before being spread, but it's not necessarily
00:04:13
composted. There are specific requirements
00:04:18
in the Food Safety Modernization Act for how long or how soon
00:04:26
after manure is applied to a field that an edible crop can be
00:04:32
harvested. OK, let me let me say that
00:04:34
again. The the the Food Safety
00:04:36
Modernization Act was put in place to help with some of these
00:04:41
issues that we have been seeing like E coli outbreaks and that
00:04:43
sort of thing. And there are some requirements
00:04:45
that were put in place for, you know, this is when or how you
00:04:48
can apply manure to a field where an edible crop is being
00:04:53
grown and how long you have to wait between that manure being
00:04:57
applied and being able to harvest that crop.
00:05:01
That's great, but there are no requirements for how long that
00:05:04
manure needs to be aged before it is applied, much less
00:05:08
composted, right? So it can be coming straight
00:05:11
from the barn and being put out into the field.
00:05:13
And then there's just a matter of time that they have to wait
00:05:16
before they can harvest an edible crop out of there.
00:05:18
And that depends on whether or not it's a root vegetable or an
00:05:20
above ground crop. So is it any wonder that we are
00:05:23
having E coli outbreaks? Yes, chicken litter and all
00:05:26
other types of these other types of of animal manures.
00:05:29
Manures are very, very nutritious for our soil.
00:05:32
They are great for vegetable production.
00:05:34
It's also a really good way to kind of recycle a lot of the
00:05:37
stuff that is being used in one industry, one operation, meaning
00:05:42
whether that's eggs or that's actual chicken itself, and using
00:05:46
that by product and as a way to also improve another product.
00:05:50
That's fantastic. But the key safety concerns in
00:05:55
all of these studies of chicken litter are its contamination
00:06:01
with pathogens. So things like bacteria and
00:06:03
fungi, parasites, viruses. They were also looking at
00:06:07
antibiotics and antibiotic resistant genes.
00:06:10
There was also concern about growth hormones such as egg and
00:06:13
meat boosters and then heavy metals that are present in the
00:06:16
feed itself and pesticides. Most of these things are not
00:06:22
concerns in home flocks because our feed sources are different.
00:06:26
We generally are not giving our birds antibiotics on a regular
00:06:30
basis. They're not in heavy
00:06:32
confinement. So the load of parasites in the
00:06:34
litter is going to be way reduced over a commercial,
00:06:38
commercial flock. So do I think the concerns are
00:06:41
there at the same level they would be in a commercial entity?
00:06:46
No. But with all that being said, it
00:06:49
is still a concern for home gardeners using our own chicken
00:06:53
litter or that of our neighbors or whatever, whether it's been
00:06:56
composted or not. This is because chickens are
00:07:00
omnivores, which means they eat both meat and vegetables.
00:07:03
If you've ever seen a chicken chase a mouse, you know this to
00:07:04
be true. They are little tiny dinosaurs,
00:07:07
but they are omnivores just like our cats and our dogs and even
00:07:10
pigs. So this means that they are
00:07:13
susceptible to a different type of load of parasites and other
00:07:18
icky things then strict omnivores or herbivores.
00:07:23
I'm sorry, like strict herbivores like cattle and and
00:07:26
rabbits and sheep are. So that means that if the litter
00:07:30
isn't handled correctly, IE it is composted properly, then
00:07:35
there is a chance that those icky things could end up in our
00:07:39
soil. Do I think it's a high chance,
00:07:41
No. Is it going to stop me from
00:07:44
using my chicken manure in my garden?
00:07:45
Also no. When we get a new planter box
00:07:49
direct planter, I typically fill the bottom 6 inches of that
00:07:53
planter with litter from our coops.
00:07:55
And then the next foot or so of material consists of fallen
00:07:58
leaves and finished compost and soil amendments and a layer of
00:08:01
potting soil on the top. So this allows that chicken
00:08:04
litter all the way down the bottom to break down slowly
00:08:07
underneath composting in place. And that releases the nutrients
00:08:10
that make their way up through the soil and eventually to the
00:08:12
roots. And it's, it's a fabulous way to
00:08:14
use that litter and also feed the plants.
00:08:17
And I am going to continue to do this.
00:08:20
But will I add my chicken litter to my compost pile going
00:08:24
forward? Maybe if I can't track the
00:08:30
temperature of that compost pile, making sure that it is
00:08:33
getting hot enough to kill off a lot of those pathogens, I may
00:08:37
not add my chicken litter to that pile because I'm not sure
00:08:41
if it's getting hot enough to kill off any of the bad buggies
00:08:43
that I don't want in there. Conversely to this, I use a
00:08:48
pelletized chicken manure as a fertilizer here on the farm.
00:08:53
It's a combination of chicken manure or chicken litter from
00:08:57
layer houses that has been super heated and it's added or it has
00:09:02
alfalfa meal and kelp meal, I believe, added to it as well.
00:09:09
And it's all kind of pelletized and then it's being used as like
00:09:13
a fertilizer, as a natural fertilizer.
00:09:15
I will continue to use that too because I know it's being
00:09:17
heated. I know it's all being cooked.
00:09:19
So I think here's what the bottom line is.
00:09:23
Whether or not you compost your chicken litter is going to
00:09:25
depend on how confident you are in the health of your flock and
00:09:30
how you manage your compost pile.
00:09:33
If you're not comfortable with that, then bury the manure
00:09:36
somewhere and call it good. Otherwise, continue on as you
00:09:39
have been. Thank you to Kathy for sending
00:09:42
over some very insightful information for all of us and
00:09:44
giving us all some food for thought because, yeah, food
00:09:47
safety still needs to be our number one priority.
00:09:52
OK, so let's talk about preparing our garden for the
00:09:56
inevitable pests that very well may find us.
00:10:00
The first thing we can talk about is physical barriers.
00:10:03
This is always, always, always one of my first lines of
00:10:08
defense. It's one of the simplest and
00:10:10
most effective ways to prevent pest damage, and that is to
00:10:13
physically keep them out. And this works for both insects
00:10:17
and animals as well, so you can choose to use a number of
00:10:22
things. If you are in an area that stays
00:10:27
fairly cold in the early part of the spring, you might use the
00:10:32
lightest weight of row cover you can find, like an Agri bond 15.
00:10:37
They are actually marketed as insect fabric.
00:10:42
It's just another type of a floating row fabric, just like
00:10:44
we use for our frost clothes. But it's very, very thin and
00:10:47
it's really good for keeping out flea beetles and cabbage worms
00:10:50
and vine borers and all these kinds of things.
00:10:52
They let in the water, they let in the light and they let out
00:10:55
the air or they let in the air, but they block insects.
00:10:59
The problem that they don't let out is what I was trying to say
00:11:02
is the heat. So I can't really use those for
00:11:06
very long in the spring. I can use it very, very early on
00:11:10
if I'm trying to get some stuff in super early and it needs to
00:11:13
be protected from some frost. But after a while, when it
00:11:15
starts to get real warm, it just traps that heat under there.
00:11:18
So my preference is actual insect netting.
00:11:22
I talk about this all the time and all these things that we're
00:11:26
going to talk about today I will link to in the show notes so you
00:11:28
can go and easily see what it is that I'm looking for.
00:11:30
And if it's something that I use, I will link to the ones
00:11:32
that I specifically purchase. Insect netting is my favorite.
00:11:37
It is, you know, it's a mesh, so the mesh needs to be small
00:11:43
enough to keep out whatever it is that your particular pests
00:11:46
are. So for me, I generally don't
00:11:48
have a problem with thrips. So I don't have to get the
00:11:51
Super, super fine woven stuff, which can be a little bit more
00:11:55
expensive. So if you don't need it, you
00:11:56
don't have to use it. All of these, The texture is
00:11:58
very much like tulle. And honestly, you can use tool.
00:12:02
If you happen to have a lot of fabric leftover from a wedding
00:12:06
or something, then yeah, by all means go ahead and use Tool.
00:12:08
As long as it's, you know, those, the little holes are
00:12:11
small enough to keep out what you're trying to keep out.
00:12:14
Just, and I do this immediately, like as soon as something gets
00:12:17
planted, it is getting that, that cover over top of it, not
00:12:21
just for the insect pest, but also for animals.
00:12:23
It also keeps out the deer and the bunnies and whatever else.
00:12:27
So long as it is, it is locked down tight enough to the soil.
00:12:31
So I use insect netting over just about everything.
00:12:36
You just have to remember if your crop needs pollination like
00:12:39
squash or cucumbers, you will need to uncover those plants.
00:12:42
And you can either do this by just completely uncovering it.
00:12:45
And OK, now it's fair game. You know which hopefully you
00:12:49
have some companion plants in there, which we'll talk about
00:12:51
here in a minute. Or you can just uncover the
00:12:54
plants during the day once those flowers start to appear and then
00:12:57
go back and cover it up at night.
00:12:59
You can even go so far as to uncover it during the day and
00:13:01
when you go out in the evening to cover it back up again.
00:13:04
Spraying them down, housing them down, trying to knock off any of
00:13:08
those insect pests that you might not see or just doing a
00:13:10
visual inspection and taking off any of those insects and then
00:13:14
covering it back up again for the night time so that at least
00:13:17
you're keeping out the the night time invaders.
00:13:20
The other option is to keep it on there all the time, but then
00:13:22
you have to hand pollinate underneath the cover.
00:13:24
So just know that if you if your crop needs pollination, you may
00:13:28
only be able to protect them with the insect netting for, you
00:13:31
know, a certain amount of time. So other than covering each
00:13:35
individual bed, when we're talking about keeping animal
00:13:38
pests out, then fencing is going to be your next best option.
00:13:41
Now, if you can manage to put a 3 or 4 foot fence around your
00:13:46
garden area, that's going to help with like rabbits and other
00:13:49
kind of lower crawling critters. But if you are trying to deter
00:13:53
deer, then your setup needs to be probably 7 to 8 foot tall.
00:13:57
And honestly, most of us don't want to mess with that.
00:14:00
So your other option here is to do a double layer of that three
00:14:04
to four foot fence, but space them about 3 to 5 feet apart.
00:14:09
So a perimeter fence. And then about 3 feet in, put a
00:14:13
second fence that's going to be a lower fence.
00:14:16
But also visually it tends to disrupted the deer.
00:14:20
They they can't jump all the way across that huge gap.
00:14:23
And so they're less likely to actually jump over it.
00:14:26
And then if we're talking about things like Volt holes and we're
00:14:30
even cut worms too, this works for, but you can actually put
00:14:32
collars around the base of young seedlings to prevent the voles
00:14:37
and the cut worms from getting to them.
00:14:38
I tend to, when I really need to, I will use toilet paper
00:14:43
rolls, the empty toilet paper rolls and just cut them in half
00:14:46
and then put them around the base of the plants because
00:14:48
they're biodegradable. I don't have to worry about it.
00:14:50
I can just collect them throughout the season and you
00:14:53
know, just use them. Then there are people who have
00:14:55
used hardware cloth and made collars out of the hardware
00:14:59
cloth. But to me that means you have to
00:15:00
go back out there and you have to take it up and then you have
00:15:02
to store them. And I'm not, I'm not about that.
00:15:04
So I tend to just use paper towel or toilet paper rolls.
00:15:10
But if you have like burrowing animals, you can also use
00:15:15
underground barriers basically beneath raised beds.
00:15:18
So if you have a raised bed when you put it down and you know you
00:15:21
have Gophers, then you can use hardware cloth in the bottom of
00:15:25
the bed before you create it. But if you're gardening in
00:15:28
ground, they have things called Gopher baskets, and it's
00:15:32
essentially the same thing. It's that mesh hardware cloth,
00:15:35
but it's in the shape of a basket and you dig your hole and
00:15:39
you put the basket in there and then you fill it back in with
00:15:41
your potting soil or your, or your, your garden soil and the
00:15:44
plant that you're planting. And it protects those roots from
00:15:48
the Gophers eating from the bottom.
00:15:50
So I mean, they can probably be pretty pricey.
00:15:53
I think two of them goes for like 8 or 10 bucks, something
00:15:56
like that. So but it's a, you know, a
00:15:58
solution that you can reuse over and over again.
00:16:01
So that's a solution if Gophers are really a problem.
00:16:05
The other way to deter animal pests is one that I kind of
00:16:10
think is fun, but you have to really do this one ahead of
00:16:13
time. And this is motion sensing
00:16:16
sprinklers or even solar powered lights that have movement
00:16:20
triggers. So any of those things that like
00:16:23
the suddenly the lights come on or suddenly the sprinklers come
00:16:27
on, these are things that are going to kind of scare away
00:16:29
those larger pests like raccoons and deer.
00:16:31
In most instances. We have some pretty brave
00:16:33
raccoons around here. So it might not always work on
00:16:36
them, but it should definitely work on the rabbits.
00:16:39
And a lot of the time it works on the deer too.
00:16:41
So that's another way to physically barricade your garden
00:16:45
from the the four footed animal pests.
00:16:49
The next technique is companion planting.
00:16:52
All right, strategic planting can make your garden less
00:16:56
appealing to pests or even attract their natural enemies.
00:17:00
We're going to go into this in detail over the next couple of
00:17:04
weeks in terms of companion planting and interplanting, but
00:17:08
for now, we're just going to talk about some of the basics.
00:17:10
And the first thing is like using strong scented herbs.
00:17:13
So basil, Rosemary, thyme, these are things that can deter some
00:17:16
pests like aphids and white flies.
00:17:18
So if you interplant them among your vegetables, it can actually
00:17:21
help to disrupt that insect detection.
00:17:25
Marigolds, we're going to talk about this in detail next week,
00:17:28
but marigolds do emit a chemical from their roots that can
00:17:31
suppress nematodes in the soil, if that is a problem for you.
00:17:35
So if you have root, not nematodes in your tomatoes, for
00:17:38
example, then yes, planting marigolds is actually going to
00:17:41
help with that. Marigolds can also repel some
00:17:46
above ground pests. They can also attract some above
00:17:50
ground pests. So how you use marigolds in your
00:17:53
companion planting is going to depend on whether or not you're
00:17:56
using it as a deterrent or if you're using it as like a trap
00:17:59
crop or something to draw pests away.
00:18:03
Trap cropping is another smart strategy.
00:18:06
Here. You can plant a preferred host
00:18:10
near whatever it is that you're growing to help draw things
00:18:14
away. So for example, nasturtiums
00:18:16
really like or aphids really like nasturtiums.
00:18:19
So if you have an aphid problem in a particular crop, then you
00:18:23
can plant nasturtiums a little bit away from it and that is
00:18:26
going to draw the aphids away from your main crop.
00:18:29
So these are all different types of like companion planting.
00:18:32
And again, we're going to go into that a little bit more next
00:18:34
week. Then we have intercropping or
00:18:38
interplanting. And this is a little bit more
00:18:41
than just companion planting. When you think traditionally in
00:18:44
terms of companion planting, I think the notion is, well, this
00:18:48
plant does something specific to help protect this specific
00:18:53
plant. Interplanting or intercropping
00:18:56
is a little bit different from that.
00:18:58
We're talking about mixing plant families together, and what this
00:19:02
can do is confuse the chemical and visual signals that insects
00:19:07
use to find their host plant, which makes it more difficult
00:19:11
for them to predate on your crop.
00:19:14
So typically speaking, when I plant my brassicas, I also plant
00:19:19
them with onions and lettuce and alyssum, plus I am putting
00:19:26
insect netting over the top. I am giving a physical barrier
00:19:30
to the cabbage moths and the cabbage butterfly that always,
00:19:34
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
00:19:44
plant, the host plant being say my cabbage by planting onions
00:19:48
near them, which give off a very particular scent and it gives
00:19:52
off sulfur, right, which is going to confuse that signal.
00:19:55
But then also lettuce, which is different looking than the
00:19:59
cabbage. And then Elysium, which is also
00:20:02
another one that is different, but it's also flowering.
00:20:04
So it brings in some of the good insects.
00:20:06
So in this instance, we are masking and not repelling.
00:20:11
There is also. The Appropriate and
00:20:14
Inappropriate Landings Theory The appropriate inappropriate
00:20:22
landing theory says that pests follow a three-step process when
00:20:26
selecting a host plant, traveling to an area with the
00:20:30
host plant by following specific odors, using visual stimuli such
00:20:34
as appearance, color, and size to land on a plant surface, and
00:20:38
making a few short flights to neighboring leaves.
00:20:41
To be successful, the insect must make consecutive
00:20:45
appropriate landings on a host plant to stimulate egg laying.
00:20:49
Non host or inappropriate landings reset the egg laying
00:20:54
process. Researchers noted that flying
00:20:57
pests made several test landings on plants before deciding it was
00:21:01
a good place to lay their eggs. In fact, they needed a specific
00:21:05
number of appropriate landings on the foliage of their target
00:21:08
plant before the egg laying process was stimulated.
00:21:12
So when interplanting non host plants together with host
00:21:15
plants, in other words mixing the species up like I do with my
00:21:19
brassicas, the pests will end up making an occasional landing on
00:21:23
a non host plant and that throws off the likelihood they will be
00:21:27
stimulated to lay their eggs. Now, it should also be noted in
00:21:33
these studies that the researchers saw that when crops
00:21:37
were grown on bare soil, the insects laid their eggs 36% of
00:21:42
the time. Compare that to when those host
00:21:46
plants were surrounded by companion plants where the
00:21:50
insects laid eggs only 7% of the time.
00:21:55
So not only does this show us that growing our plants in a
00:21:58
monoculture is again a bad idea, it also shows us that mulch here
00:22:04
once again, is our friend. See, I'm always talking about
00:22:07
mulch. Now, keep in mind, companion
00:22:11
planting isn't a silver bullet, and I think we need to be very
00:22:14
specific about what we plant together if we have a
00:22:18
particularly ruthless pest like squash vine boars or squash
00:22:22
bugs. So in the instance that we have
00:22:25
a very pervasive problem, I think we need to be mindful of
00:22:29
not just the life cycles of those pests and the timing for
00:22:34
the maturity of our host crop and their companions.
00:22:37
It's going to take some experimenting, but I still
00:22:40
maintain that companion planting and intercropping are powerful
00:22:44
additions to a diverse garden ecosystem that can also help
00:22:48
deter pests. I have been very impressed with
00:22:52
how my new rose Bush from heirloom roses has continued to
00:22:55
fully leaf out after spending all winter in its pot outside in
00:22:59
our harsh Missouri weather. I think the reason it has done
00:23:02
so well is because it's not a grafted plant.
00:23:06
By choosing own root roses, you're making a smart choice for
00:23:10
the long term health and beauty of your garden.
00:23:12
While grafted roses may be the easy option, they come with
00:23:16
hidden risks. The grafting points can make
00:23:19
them more vulnerable to disease and winter damage, typically
00:23:22
shortening their lifespan to around 15 years.
00:23:25
Own root roses, though, have strong natural root systems that
00:23:30
make them more resilient and better equipped to handle
00:23:33
challenging conditions like our West Central Missouri winters.
00:23:36
Even in a container, many of these roses can thrive for 50
00:23:41
years or more, providing lasting beauty to our landscapes.
00:23:44
At Heirloom Roses, they focus on growing healthy, true to variety
00:23:48
roses that are naturally strong and resilient.
00:23:50
By choosing own root roses, we're creating a garden that
00:23:53
will continue to thrive and bloom year after year, providing
00:23:57
lasting beauty. Get your own root roses by going
00:24:01
to heirloomroses.com and use code Just GROW at checkout to
00:24:05
save 20% on your new rosebush. heirloomroses.com with code Just
00:24:10
Grow. The link is in the show notes.
00:24:12
OK, the next thing we can use to be prepared for garden pest is
00:24:16
organic sprays and soil amendments.
00:24:18
So there are a lot of organic approved treatments that can
00:24:21
help with pest problems, but the timing and the technique matter
00:24:25
because we do not want to be doing more harm than good or we
00:24:28
don't want to be harming, you know, the beneficial insects
00:24:31
while we're trying to get rid of the ones that we don't want.
00:24:33
So the first one we can look at is insecticidal soaps and oils.
00:24:37
These are very effective against soft bodied insects like aphids
00:24:41
and spider mites and whiteflies. It is important to apply these
00:24:46
early in the morning or late in the day to avoid direct sun,
00:24:49
which can cause leaf burn, and also to reduce that exposure to
00:24:53
the pollinators. We also do not want to spray
00:24:56
insecticidal soaps on flowers where the bees might be
00:24:59
foraging, and if we can, we want to direct the spray at the
00:25:03
insect pests themselves when possible instead of blanketing
00:25:06
the entire plant. Unless the entire plant is
00:25:09
basically infested and then by all means go for it.
00:25:12
You can buy insecticidal soaps or you can make your own if you
00:25:18
mix 1 to 2 tablespoons of pure liquid soap.
00:25:22
And no, we are not talking about dish soap here.
00:25:24
Dish soap is not soap, it's actually a detergent.
00:25:27
We want a liquid soap like a castile soap, so 1 to 2
00:25:31
tablespoons per quart of water. Additionally, you can add a
00:25:35
tablespoon of vegetable oil to this and kind of helps make
00:25:39
things a little bit more sticky. Shake the bottle up to combine
00:25:42
the mixture and you can use that just on its own.
00:25:46
If you want a little boost to this, you can also add some
00:25:48
other like pest deterring ingredients.
00:25:51
So apple cider vinegar, ground red pepper, garlic powder.
00:25:55
I have used Rosemary oil and mint oil just to make this a
00:25:59
little bit more effective. Your second one would be neem
00:26:03
oil. This disrupts the life cycle of
00:26:06
a lot of different pests, but it can also affect beneficials if
00:26:09
it's overused. So you want to apply neem oil
00:26:12
only when necessary and you want to target your problem areas.
00:26:15
Make sure that you are following the directions on this.
00:26:18
The next one would be would be BT.
00:26:20
This is Bacillus thuringiensis. This is a naturally occurring
00:26:23
bacterium that is found in soils and on plant leaves worldwide.
00:26:27
It produces proteins that are toxic to certain insect larvae,
00:26:32
which is how we use it as a biopesticide.
00:26:35
It targets Caterpillar pests like cabbage worms and tomato
00:26:38
hornworms. It is harmless to birds and bees
00:26:41
and mammals, but again, we want targeted application.
00:26:45
We don't want to use this broadly.
00:26:48
Another one is spinosad. This is another naturally
00:26:51
occurring soil dwelling bacterium.
00:26:53
It was collected on a Caribbean island somewhere in the early
00:26:56
1980s. It's the only place that it
00:26:58
naturally occurs. Spinosag controls all stages of
00:27:02
bagworms, beetles, mites, caterpillars, thrips, leaf
00:27:05
miners, coddling Moss, a whole bunch of different ones.
00:27:08
This is another one that is also safe for beneficials, but only
00:27:12
after it has had a chance to dry.
00:27:14
So this is one that you want to spray at dusk and allow it to
00:27:18
dry on the leaves overnight to avoid harming anything else.
00:27:22
It will kill a bee if it is sprayed directly on it.
00:27:25
So make sure that you are being very thoughtful about when you
00:27:27
spray these things. Generally speaking, between the
00:27:30
hours of 10 AM and 3:00 PM are our peak pollinator time.
00:27:34
So you want to be spraying these things before or after those
00:27:37
times. Another one is diatomaceous
00:27:40
earth. This can be useful around the
00:27:43
bases of plants for crawling pests.
00:27:45
Essentially a kind of cuts their exoskeleton.
00:27:48
It is only effective when it is dry and it can also affect
00:27:53
beneficial insects. So make sure that you are using
00:27:55
it selectively and try not to do it during blooming periods.
00:27:59
And you also are going to have to reapply it after a rainfall.
00:28:04
Another one that I have used in a similar manner is First
00:28:06
Saturday Lyme. It is also drying to insects.
00:28:09
It is, if I remember correctly, it is not water soluble.
00:28:12
So you don't have to reapply it every single time it rains.
00:28:16
And it tends to be a little bit safer than DE in terms of like
00:28:21
breathing because there aren't any sharp edges to it.
00:28:23
But again, you know, you just kind of have to be selective
00:28:26
about the way that you use these things.
00:28:29
And then finally, let's look at soil health amendments.
00:28:33
Healthy plants are naturally just more resistant to pests.
00:28:38
So in addition to all of these other things that we're talking
00:28:42
about, we should be trying to maintain balanced nutrients in
00:28:46
our soil that can help to reduce insect attraction, right?
00:28:50
We should be adding compost. We should be mulching again with
00:28:54
the mulch. All of these things are going to
00:28:55
improve the ability of our plants to resist the insects,
00:29:00
but also to be more resilient. If they do have insects come in
00:29:03
and predate on them, they're going to bounce back faster the
00:29:06
healthier they are. So we should always, always be
00:29:08
focusing on our soil health, but even more so in terms of being
00:29:11
prepared for garden pests or to keep garden pests away.
00:29:15
So sometimes the best pest control is simply based on how
00:29:22
we plant our gardens. So succession planting, this is
00:29:26
going to reduce the window of vulnerability.
00:29:28
I've talked about this before in terms of battling like squash
00:29:32
bugs and vine borers and cucumber beetles in our
00:29:34
squashes. If one crop gets hit, the next
00:29:37
one may escape damage entirely depending on the life cycle of
00:29:40
the insect that you're battling. So if you can do succession
00:29:44
plantings in your area, if you have a window of time that's
00:29:46
long enough in your gardening, which I recognize a lot of us
00:29:49
don't. But if you do, you can plant an
00:29:52
early crop and a mid season crop and a late crop of of the same
00:29:56
crop and the hope there is that you know there that crop is only
00:30:01
going to be vulnerable during a specific window of time.
00:30:04
This does work depending on the past.
00:30:07
So something like a squash bug, this is not going to work for
00:30:11
because squash bugs over winter as adults, they come out and
00:30:14
immediately begin to reproduce and they will continue to
00:30:17
reproduce over and over again all the way through until you
00:30:20
have your first frost in the fall.
00:30:21
So in this way, succession planting is just a way to try to
00:30:26
keep up with the pest damage. In terms of something like the
00:30:29
squash vine borer, they do have a very specific window of
00:30:33
reproduction where they're flying around and laying their
00:30:36
eggs. And once that's done, that's
00:30:37
done and the rest of the season you are free of that pest.
00:30:41
So if the vine borer is your main problem, then maybe you
00:30:45
don't plant anything at all in that family early in the season
00:30:49
and you wait until the end of July to plant those susceptible
00:30:53
plants and thereby you have closed that window of
00:30:56
vulnerability and you have no problem getting a crop.
00:30:59
The other thing is again, that diverse planting, we already
00:31:02
talked about it in intercropping, mixing those crop
00:31:05
types, mixing the growth stages. This helps to prevent pest
00:31:10
populations from establishing because we're not growing in a
00:31:13
monoculture. We want everything growing
00:31:16
together. I know, I know for some of this,
00:31:19
this is really hard to get past. It took me a really long time to
00:31:22
sort of get beyond this idea where everything should be grown
00:31:26
in a nice neat row and this should only be this crop and
00:31:30
this should only be this crop over here in this bed and mixing
00:31:34
them together. It can be aesthetically pleasing
00:31:37
if it's if that's what you're going for in your garden.
00:31:39
If you really want your garden to look pretty, you can do
00:31:42
diverse plantings and mix these crop types in and amongst each
00:31:46
other and still make it beautiful.
00:31:49
It just isn't going to be linear and we don't want one crop all
00:31:52
by itself ever. OK, the other thing too is crop
00:31:57
rotation. So this absolutely will help
00:32:01
disrupt pest life cycles, especially for soil borne
00:32:05
insects and also soil borne diseases.
00:32:08
But I understand that it is very difficult for a lot of home
00:32:11
gardeners to be able to actually truly accomplish crop rotation
00:32:16
because a lot of us are gardening in very small spaces.
00:32:19
So do you have to rotate your crops all the time?
00:32:23
No, I know that's an unpopular opinion, but especially coming
00:32:26
from the farming side of things where crop rotation is like beat
00:32:28
into your brain, yes, you absolutely have to rotate.
00:32:31
Again, if we're not growing things in a monoculture, there
00:32:35
is less likelihood that specific pests are going to build up in
00:32:38
the soil and specific diseases. OK, so if you are gardening in a
00:32:42
very small space and you not have have not seen any sign of
00:32:45
soil borne pests or diseases, then you likely don't have to
00:32:49
worry as much about crop rotation.
00:32:51
Should you grow the same thing over and over again in the same
00:32:53
bed year after year after year? No, but do you have to move it
00:32:57
every single year and, and and leave it you know where it's
00:33:01
three years before you plant something in the same crop
00:33:03
family in that spot? Not necessarily.
00:33:06
Only if you are seeing those soil borne insects and if you do
00:33:09
have a very small garden and you're gardening in a very small
00:33:12
space and a lot of these plants are already naturally sharing
00:33:14
the same soil space, then your option may end up being just not
00:33:19
growing that crop this year or for a couple of years to break
00:33:23
that life cycle. We did that with squash.
00:33:26
We were so overwhelmed with the squash pest that we took it was
00:33:31
either one year or two years off completely from growing
00:33:34
zucchinis and and summer squashes and winter squashes,
00:33:38
anything in that family just to break the cycle.
00:33:42
So that might be your only option if you need to disrupt a
00:33:45
pest life cycle. Otherwise, yes, practice crop
00:33:47
rotation as you can. And of course, we want to scout
00:33:52
early and often. So we want to be looking under
00:33:56
the leaves. We want to check the stems and
00:33:57
the soil and watch for early signs of trouble.
00:34:00
If we can catch a problem before it spreads, it is always easier
00:34:04
than playing catch up. So let's touch again on
00:34:07
protecting crops while still encouraging pollination.
00:34:11
If who are growing flowering crops that need pollination,
00:34:15
specifically squash or melons that are insect pollinated, not
00:34:19
wind pollinated, then we're going to need to strike a
00:34:22
balance a little bit in terms of protecting those crops while
00:34:26
also encouraging those pollinators to come in and do
00:34:28
their jobs. So those removable row covers,
00:34:31
again, pulling those back during flowering or the other option
00:34:36
which is hand pollinating while they're still protected.
00:34:39
I guess it really just depends on how important that crop is to
00:34:42
you. If you are somebody who relies
00:34:44
on zucchini, you guys eat a lot of zucchini in your kitchen
00:34:48
fresh, you freeze a lot of it, you know, for the offseason and
00:34:52
this is something that you, you know, you really need to come
00:34:54
in, then you might be willing to hand pollinate if that's the
00:34:57
only way that you're going to get that crop.
00:34:59
The other thing is to just be vigilant in checking for those
00:35:02
pests. If you start and you as soon as
00:35:05
you plant, you're checking daily or every other day, every
00:35:09
evening, whatever it is for those pests, then you are more
00:35:13
likely to keep them at Bay or at least keep them in check so that
00:35:18
they're not taking over the plant.
00:35:20
And again, if you have very healthy soil and you have very
00:35:23
healthy plants, those plants are going to be able to stand up to
00:35:25
some of those pests. Now, something that I'm
00:35:28
considering trying this year as an experiment is using some mesh
00:35:33
netting with slightly larger holes.
00:35:35
So very similar to the insect netting that I am currently
00:35:39
using, but something that is a little bit larger, that is small
00:35:44
enough to block the squash bugs while also allowing the smaller
00:35:50
pollinators to still get in there.
00:35:53
So I'm not going to do this over my whole crop because, you know,
00:35:56
it could be disastrous. But I'm going to take one small
00:35:59
section of my squashes and try this out and see if I can strike
00:36:04
a little bit more of an even balance here where I'm keeping
00:36:06
out the majority of the major pests.
00:36:09
So that would be the squash bug and the vine bore, but still
00:36:12
allowing those smaller pollinators access.
00:36:15
I do have cucumber beetles and they would likely be able to get
00:36:19
in through these holes that I'm thinking about, but they are
00:36:22
less of a problem in my squashes than they are like in my actual
00:36:25
cucumbers. And believe it or not, cucumber
00:36:27
beetles can actually sometimes act as pollinators in squash
00:36:30
because they get right into the, into the flowers.
00:36:34
But I'm hopeful that some of the smaller like, you know, the, the
00:36:36
surfed Wasps and all the other kinds of things that go in there
00:36:39
might be able to pollinate on my behalf and I won't have to worry
00:36:42
about taking that netting off. So we'll see If I actually find
00:36:45
something that I think is suitable and give that a shot.
00:36:48
I will certainly report back and let you know.
00:36:50
In the meantime, we still do want to encourage all of those
00:36:54
native pollinators. So we want to plant those bee
00:36:56
friendly flowers nearby. We don't want to spray anything,
00:37:00
even if it's organic, during our peak bee activity between 10:00
00:37:04
AM and 3:00 PM. Because of course, pollinators
00:37:07
are essential allies in the garden and so we want to protect
00:37:09
them as fiercely as we are our garden.
00:37:14
Being proactive with pest management and being prepared
00:37:18
ahead of time is all about observation and preparation and
00:37:22
just balance. So we should be using physical
00:37:25
barriers, planning out our plantings, supporting our soil
00:37:29
health, and also applying those organic controls thoughtfully so
00:37:34
that we can have a productive garden without reaching for
00:37:37
synthetic chemicals. Are there some instances where
00:37:40
it just may be necessary for you to spray something that you
00:37:45
otherwise wouldn't? Sure.
00:37:46
Absolutely. If you have gotten into a
00:37:48
situation where you have a crop that you are relying on and
00:37:53
nothing you're doing is working and you have to resort to
00:37:55
something that is synthetic, okay, you know what?
00:37:58
Give yourself the permission to do that.
00:38:01
Here's the thing about the prevalence of these synthetic
00:38:05
chemicals, it is the overuse of these synthetic chemicals.
00:38:10
So I will never take a hard line and tell somebody you should
00:38:15
never do something in your own garden.
00:38:18
If you are trying to feed your family and you are doing that in
00:38:21
the best way that you possibly can and you have tried
00:38:24
everything else to be able to get rid of these garden pests
00:38:27
and you are at your wit's end and it's your last resort, then
00:38:30
fine. Use a chemical that is your last
00:38:33
resort. Use it responsibly.
00:38:35
Use it according to the label. Remember, the label is the law.
00:38:38
We want to make sure that we are using it to where it is
00:38:40
effective and it is not going to cause issues with causing, you
00:38:45
know, resistant insects to develop.
00:38:47
This happens when you overuse or under use.
00:38:50
So make sure that you're following the directions and
00:38:53
then try to find ways where you can improve it for the next
00:38:56
season. So your garden is a living
00:39:00
system. So what works one year may need
00:39:03
tweaking in the next. This is where Good Notes comes
00:39:05
into play. Staying curious, not being
00:39:09
afraid to experiment with things.
00:39:12
Don't beat yourself up if it doesn't work.
00:39:14
We are manipulating Mother Nature and that doesn't always
00:39:17
go in our favor. So if you have had success with
00:39:21
a particular pest management strategy, that goes for a
00:39:25
particular pest that maybe I don't talk about.
00:39:27
I know I talk about squash bugs and vine borers and cucumber
00:39:29
beetles a lot because those are the things that are the bane of
00:39:32
my existence in my garden. OK, Those are the things that I
00:39:35
am most worried about. Do I occasionally have apid
00:39:37
problems? Yes, but they are rare and I
00:39:39
generally can take care of them without a problem.
00:39:41
So I would love to hear from you.
00:39:43
Drop me a message, tag me on social media and tell me what
00:39:48
pests it is that you have traditionally had to battle and
00:39:52
any success that you have had with battling that if you are in
00:39:55
the just for something gardening friends Facebook group, post it
00:39:58
in there so everybody else can learn because we want everybody
00:40:01
to learn. And if I get enough of these
00:40:03
responses and maybe I'll go ahead and make another episode
00:40:05
where I follow up with your solutions for pest management.
00:40:09
So until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
00:40:11
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.