Home | Home | Gardening

Natural Methods Are Smartest for Your Vegetable Garden

By: Irwin Brewington

Read More About Gardening

If you have a vegetable garden then you know that can you lose quite a bit of the harvest to pests every year, this is why people adopt various methods of pest control. When your plants are correctly cultivated, watered and fertilized, they fare much better against pests than unhealthy plants. First you'll want to choose plants for your garden that have a natural resistance to pests.

Few plants can hold off insects on their own, but there are many plants that are able to resist a list of common garden ailments. If you are growing from seed, do not hold onto the leftovers for use in the next year. This is where a lot of seed based diseases will come from. Buy new seeds every year to prevent disease, make sure you go to a seller who deals in high quality, pest resistant seeds. When you transplant, make sure that you only do so with healthy plants. More vulnerable for certain types of pests, plants which are spindly, too old or too young, or weak will likely not survive the shock of being transplanted.

One good way to control a lot of soil borne diseases is to rotate your vegetables in your garden each year. Alternating corn with other crops is a good system. If you want to form a nice four year rotation, you could start with corn and then follow that with a cole drop like greens or broccoli, next follow this with solanaceous crops like tomatoes and peppers, the third year go with legumes, then go back to corn again.

Samples of smart sanitation to be utilized for good pest control include making sure that the garden is free of infested crop debris, cull piles, and volunteer plants. Keeping residue to use as mulch is a bad habit, since a number of pests live in vegetable plant residue. You ought to mulch using leaves, straw, or even other materials which are not for gardens. Although it has numerous beneficial characteristics, mulch does possess a significant downside, and you must know this. Some insects will hide and live inside mulch, allowing them to move beneath the mulch layer and get to your plants before you even know they are there.

Good sanitation will also keep your vegetable garden disease free. You should always wash your hands and your tools with soap and water before you handle any transplant seedlings or do any close cultivation. If you happen to be a smoker and have tobacco residue on your hands, you need to take extra care to wash your hands because tobacco products can harbor certain plant viruses like the deadly tobacco mosaic.

Garden pests could also easily be hiding in weeds. Weeds attract certain pests and insects, so make sure that you weed your vegetable garden regularly to avoid this. Weeds can carry nematodes, mites, beetles, leafhoppers, aphids, and other insects, and these pests not only damage the plants but can also transmit plant diseases. Make especially certain that Johnson grass, which is a perennial weed that usually hides insects, is eliminated; you must endeavor to maintain a weed free area all around your garden.

Keeping proper moisture is also a vital element to a pest-free garden. Water the garden early on in the day to manage diseases more effectively. Watering in the morning prevents the growth of fungus, eliminating the need to use a fungicide. If you water late in the day, then the moisture may stay on the plants overnight, creating a warm, moist environment that is just perfect for fungus growth.

Adding a shield or some type of pest-proof barrier around your transplants can help keep them safe from some insects. Cardboard, singles, or plastic from a milk jug are all great materials that you can utilize to make a shield around your plant, just push it a few inches in the earth around the plant. Wireworms, cutworms, grubs and other insects move just below the surface of the ground. By using these barriers, you can help keep your young transplants safe from these invaders. Although you can introduce your own type of predator insect to destroy an existing problem, you should take care to avoid this practice if you are able. Praying mantis, ladybugs, lacewings, syrphid flies, ground beetles and spiders are all types of predator insects that gardeners have learned to introduce to their gardens, but then they avoid destroying them.

If, despite all of your best efforts, these natural methods aren't keeping pests away you may consider a pesticide, but leave it as a last resort. It's critical to read and obey the instructions on the label. For example, if the directions say you need to wait a specific time period after spraying before you harvest your vegetables, be sure to wait out that period to ensure a healthy harvest.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

To get a closer look on pest Control Australia visit this site. When you would like to get more information on cheap pest control services check out this site.

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Gardening Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Home | Gardening
Sign Up for a free account.
Our other websites
All about SEO
Beauty Tips Forum
Submit Articles
Member Login
Link Us
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
Sitemap
New Stuff
About Us
Developer
Good shopping portal
Link to Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

counter easy hit

Powered by Article Dashboard