Organic methods of pest control are easy and inexpensive. Why spray chemicals on your perfectly healthy creations from nature? Organic gardening is becoming more and more popular and organic pest control is more common in the backyard. After all, I want to eat my vegetables when harvest time comes around. Don’t you?
I’m only going to talk about two of the most common pests in your raised vegetable garden.
Snails
The first little pest is snails. Snails are large and easy to spot but I don’t like spending parts of my evening picking them out with a flashlight so I turn to other tactics. My first approach is egg shells around the raised vegetable garden. These egg shells should be clean to keep other animals from smelling the eggs and moving in too. Snails do not like egg shells and this creates a perfect barrier around your raised vegetable garden. If you rather not deal with egg shells you can use sand as well. I have crushed marble that is pure white and very clean.
Another idea for snails in your raised vegetable garden are beer pans. The snails are attracted to the smell, crawl inside and drown. This method requires you to replace the beer every few days for freshness.
Aphids
Ladybugs are hands down the best way to naturally rid your raised vegetable garden of these pests. The biggest trick is keeping them around. A good idea is to lightly spray your garden with water just as the sun sets and release the ladybugs. Ladybugs don’t like to venture out at night and if you provide them water and aphids they just might call your raised vegetable garden home. Ladybugs also like pollen as well. So make sure the raised vegetable garden has some dill or wild carrot. Did you know a single ladybug can eat over 5,000 aphids in its lifetime? You can purchase ladybugs at your local hardware store or online.
Please leave a comment and let me know what has worked for you. Happy gardening.
