Organic Pest Control​

​Organic gardeners wish to avoid chemical and poison-tainted plants and produce.
​Simple techniques and products for organic pest control keep your gardens healthy. 

Control Pests Organically for Healthier Vegetables 

The colorful striped back of a Colorado potato beetle.Colorado Potato Beetle
Vegetables are unquestionably a healthy and necessary part of your diet. Vegetable growers wage a constant  struggle with insect pests that can damage or destroy their hard work. Unfortunately, when chemical pesticides are used on a vegetable garden, the residues can remain and cause problems such as allergic reactions. Organic gardeners seek to solve garden problems without using chemicals or unhealthy practices.​
​Organic pest control involves a holistic approach to gardening. It doesn’t mean substituting naturally occurring poisons for chemical ones and gardening as usual. It may mean that you need to make a few basic changes to the way you think about gardening:
  • Accept that most insects are NOT pests. They may even be helpers.
  • Stop trying to kill every insect you see in your vegetable garden.
  • Accept the occasional hole or bite in your produce as a natural part of raising healthy, residue-free food.

Techniques for Controlling Pests Organically
There are three basic techniques or approaches to organic garden care that are essential:
  • Good soil care
  • Resistant and suitable plants
  • Good plant care.
   Good Soil Care Healthy, well-fed soil is full of tiny living organisms that feed and care for plant roots. Plants growing in such soil are naturally pest resistant. Follow these basic concepts to enhance your garden soil. Test and adjust the soil’s pH to suit the plants of choice. Add abundant quantities of organic matter, such as compost or compost tea. Till only when needed and never when the soil is wet. Don’t use synthetic fertilizers or herbicides.
   Resistant and Suitable Plants Choose insect resistant plants. There are many vegetable varieties that have disease and pest resistance built in. Try to find plants that grow well in your particular region. Suitable plants mean less time fighting pest problems
   Good Plant Care Plants that are stressed are prime candidates for problems. Try to give every plant exactly what it needs so it is never excessively thirsty or hungry. Remember, overwatered or overfed plants are also stressed plants. Feeding and weeding are daily activities.
 
Products for Organic Pest Control
An organic garden center has many supplies to choose from. Staff can help you choose products to promote healthy growth. Here are some tools for maintaining pest control.
  • Beneficial Bugs Some garden helper insects can hunt and destroy nuisance pests. Purchase and apply them according to label instructions. Lacewing larvae are predators of aphids, mites and other small, soft pests. Lady beetles are traditionally great predators, but may fly away after release. Predatory or Trichogramma wasps lay their eggs on pest caterpillar eggs so that the pest eggs never get a chance to hatch. Nematodes are tiny worm-like creatures that hunt insects in the soil and kill them
  • Natural Disease Elements Some naturally occurring diseases make pest insects sick.
  • BT or BTK (Bacillus thuringiensis) is in a form that can be purchased. It makes only caterpillars sick. BTSD is another type of BT that makes only Colorado potato beetle larvae sick.
  • Barriers Certain barrier devices help keep insects away from plants. Floating row covers let the sun, rain, and air through but provide closed protect from invading pest insects. Cardboard tubes, copper strips, and diatomaceous earth are useful in keeping some nuisance insects from approaching garden plants.
  • Insect Traps A variety of traps are available for killing invading insect pests Hang or stake the traps a few inches above the top of the infested plants. Sticky yellow rectangles trap a number of different flying pests. Sticky white traps work for flea beetles. Cotton balls soaked with clove or allspice oil lure and attract cucumber beetles into the traps.
 
The Gardener’s Best Tools
Ultimately, your own eyes and your hands may be the most beneficial tools for spotting and removing garden pests. Use your eyes to spot potential problem situations before they escalate. Closely observe your garden a couple of times a week, lifting and looking under leaves. Simply use your hands to pick off and remove pests for squashing or drowning.
Author: Karla Beatty
​Strong, healthy plants aren’t as attractive to insect pests as weakened, stressed plants. Follow the organic practices above to develop the healthiest plants. Maintaining a healthy garden is the first approach to keeping a garden pest free. Give yourself a gift as a gardener and have the tastiest, healthiest produce you can grow.
Read more about natural pest control, organic gardens, and the environment.

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