Most gardeners and even commercial crop growers are very pleased with themselves if they take a step back from using chemical insecticides and go back to using natural, old-fashioned insecticides. And it is true, they have, but did you know that there is yet another step back too? A step backward in time that does not involve spraying of any kind at all.
So, here are a couple of things to try before using natural pesticide.
If you are having problems with slugs, half bury a few jam jars in your flower beds and pour some beer into them, about two or three inches deep. Slugs do not care about the type of the beer. It can be cider, lager or beer; it can be slops or flat. Slugs are acutely addicted to beer, and they will drink themselves into a stupor, fall into the beer and die.
Even if there are a dozen dead slugs in the beer, other slugs will still come and drink from the jar. Empty the jars every day or they start to smell and replenish with beer for that night's party. You can quickly reduce your garden's slug numbers in this manner.
If you are having problems with ants of any species, you could buy a container of nematodes. These are tiny insects that live in the ground and feed on any insects in the soil that they come across.
Ants and termites are a natural source of food. Nematodes can wipe out a colony in a week or two. Buy them from a farming or garden centre, mix them with rain water and tip the water over trouble areas.
Natural predators are a very useful way of controlling pest insects. Harmless lizards and snakes are excellent for this job. However, cats will kill these animals. My neighbour's two cats have cleared the surrounding gardens of lizards in the last six months alone.
Whereas I used to see lizards hunting every day, I have not seen any for days. This will impinge on our plants unfavorably, so from now on those cats are not welcome in our garden.
Cats will also discourage birds from coming into a garden and birds eat thousands or insects a week each. I still have a lot of birds in the garden, but they only hunt in the rose bushes now where the cats are scared to go.
You can try growing the plants that you would use as natural insecticides in among the plants that you would spray them on. For instance, greenfly do not like garlic and some gardeners spray their rose bushes with crushed garlic and water, but you can obtain the same result from growing garlic under your roses. One garlic is not enough, you will have to have half a dozen or more per bush, but what is wrong with that? You can eat or sell the garlic.
Wireworms can be lured into tin cans and destroyed. Take a large can, put in a layer of vegetable peelings and poke holes in the sides of it with a screw driver. Empty it every few days.
There are a lot more ways of killing or repelling pests in the garden without using any kind of pesticide at all, but you will have to look for those yourself.
More Information:
Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on many subjects, but is at present involved with
Terro Ant Bait. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at
Killing Carpenter Ants.
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