Are you shying away from creating a beautiful organic garden because of those irritating bugs that destroy the beautiful flowers and eat the vegetables? Well now there is no need to suppress your gardening instincts anymore. Your kitchen is capable of providing more pest control solutions that you can possibly imagine. In addition to this, the solutions will also keep the little bugs alive. The kitchen solutions are easily put together and very handy.
There are a number of simple tips that can be considered, to enjoy a beautiful garden that is devoid of pests and rodents. The options given below are not only effective, but also inexpensive. Some of them are given below:
- Garlic: This magical herb keeps garden pests like aphids away. Crush garlic cloves to create a spray and additionally you can also plant sprouting garlic as a repellent. This natural repellent is very effective and inexpensive too. The magic potion can be put together in the kitchen. Other stinky plants that can keep these bugs away are onions, chives and scallions. The pungent smell of these plants keeps the pests and rodents away, naturally.
- Fennel: This wonderful solution attracts the beautiful ladybugs. Ladybugs are averse to spider mites and aphids and they love plants, animals and people too! They are not only inexpensive, but more effective too. Other effective herbs that attract ladybugs are dill, cilantro, angelica and parsley. The herbs and garden plants such as these, not only attract the existent pests, but also help to get rid of them once and for all.
- Praying Mantis: This is a very hardworking and useful insect that suffers greatly from hunger pangs and enjoys a dinner or lunch of aphids, fruits, flies, grasshoppers, moths, crickets and houseflies. But, he tends to gobble up beneficial insects like lacewings and hover flies too. Nevertheless, one thing is for sure, he will make sure that the garden is free from insects. If you are interested in bringing him home, you can buy cases of praying mantis eggs that are available in pest control shops. This garden friend is the best option for enhancing the appearance of the garden.
- Organic Sprays: Is adding to the insects in your garden not your idea of keeping some at bay? Then there are other interesting organic ways like the neem or Pyrethrum. You can also try out the sticky traps that are available in the pest control stores. The traps take up little space, but are effective in controlling the presence of rodents and insects in the garden.
A very efficient way to repel pests and help your garden grow is to maintain proper soil fertility. Try proper waste handling methods and good compost methods in the very beginning. Kitchen waste need not be thrown away anymore. You can identify the compost that is useful and will compliment the growth of the plants in the kitchen or terrace garden. Always try to maintain a bio-diversity in your garden, by planting a diverse ecosystem of native species.
Other effective ways for driving those irritating bugs out of your garden are spraying a homemade mixture of ammonia and water. While on one hand ammonia kills the bugs it also provides essential nitrogen to the soil. The mixture is beneficial to the plant and soil and is handy to keep in the shed or on the garden shelf.
If you are frustrated by the attack of snails, just feed them with beer. Put a small quantity of beer in a shallow container and place it where you find them the most. The funny thing is they get in easily, but they can’t crawl out. This makes it easy for you to get rid of them once and for all. The home remedy of beer for trapping snails is fast catching up and many garden enthusiasts are adopting it.
For those worms on your cabbage leaves, just sprinkle some self-rising flour on the leaves. Take a small paper bag, pour some flour and roll up the top. Make a few holes at the bottom of the bag and start sprinkling. The ideal time is early in the morning, before the sun rises because that’s when the bugs are most active. The bugs will eat the flour and as the sun comes out, they explode. This gets rid of them and ensures a pest free garden.
Another ideal bug catcher is the potato. Take a potato, slice it and poke a skewer through each slice. Bury it a couple of inches deep in the soil. Bury each slice about a foot apart, near the root crops and pull the potatoes out after a couple of weeks. You will see all kinds of nasty bugs sticking onto the slices. They are attracted to the potato, but cannot break free later. This method enables you to identify and do away with the pests and insects.
