I started a thread yesterday asking how you water your garden, I thought I'd start a similar thread on what you do to keep pests out of your garden.
Last year was the first year I had a real garden. Previously, when I had lived in town, I had a small garden and my main pest was squirrels, but they mostly just ate the seeds I planted, so I made a little cage that I covered my seeds with until they had sprouted.
My problem last year was that I kept getting most of the leaves eaten on my squash, peppers, and tomato plants. I tried using some chemical stuff to keep deer away, but I think by then it was too late. I got some tomatoes and a few squash, but that was it.
This year I'm going all out and I'm working on expanding my garden as well.
I planted a whole bunch of squash in the garden a few days ago, and I come out today and find several of them eaten. So this is what I'm doing:
1. I got a couple things of dried Crushed Red Pepper ($1 for 4 oz at the dollar store). Spread that around.
2. I got a 25lb bag of diatomaceous earth and spread a little bit of that on top of the ground (haven't seen any slugs yet, but last year I had a ton).
3. I'm working on building a small fence. I have two gardens - a large one about 800sq feet, which I won't be able to fence right now (too costly), and a smaller one that I'm going to try to fence.
Best bit of advice that i can give is try and attract as many native, natural predators as possible! Birds (not pigeons), hedgehogs, frogs, toads, hoverflies, bee's, wasps, ladybirds.
Remember, whatever chemicals etc you put down to kill pests will eventually end up inside your food, in some way or another!
If you have problems with birds or deer, use chicken wire and netting to protect.
Grow Nasturtiums amongst other greens, cabbages, kale etc. Most butterflies will lay eggs on these, so the caterpillers will eat the nasturtiums instead of the brassicas ;-)
Loads more that you can lookup about working with mother nature when growing food ;-)
You see marigolds and sunflowers around old gardens for a reason. Distract and deter. Things attracted to your greens are more attracted to the marigolds, things attracted to seeds are more attracted to sunflowers.
I fence small gardens as I'm able with reclaimed chicken wire or whatever I come across but most is not fenced because I can't afford it :xeye:
I have some random stakes with pieces of colorful fabric to blow in the breeze and I also hang soap on a rope near things the deer like to graze on because they don't like it.
My chickens are the worst for me. They love the tender shoots and tasty blossoms and fruits/veggies. I try to distract them away from the gardens and if they get too grabby I hang up some old pie tins to clatter and shoo them away or give them some extra table scraps far away from the garden.
Egg shells around on the dirt for slugs, beer traps if I spot any, and if I spot other bugs I give all the plants a good cleaning with a spray bottle of mild soapy water.
This fence has proven effective for me so far this year for keeping deer out. It is "semi-permanent." I will probably leave the metal posts up, but roll up the wire and tape, and use the white "step-in" posts in another application. It is powered by a very heavy duty deep cycle marine battery and a 1-joule high impedance fence charger. This is a pretty hefty initial investment, something on the order of $500-$600 for my 3/4 acre garden. Cheaper than an eight foot wire fence, and I can use the components in other places.
I use companion plants and herbs. Africian marigolds are awesome, as is Borage--in tomatoes. Basil will help with biting bugs and mosquitos and they stay away from my Russian sage herbs. Just look up companion planting and do some research as there are many more not mentioned here. Good luck.
I use the marigolds and sun flowers, also did the nasturtiums in with broccoli. Get some live ladybugs next year, they help.
As for chickens, we made a little patch for them and I just buy the 20 cent packs of seeds at wal mart and throw them in there, whatever comes up they eat. It's less hassle for them to eat from there vs making it to the garden unnoticed and this has helped a lot.
We had no choise but to build a fence, a HIGH fence around our gardens. The groundhogs got over the first one, then got under the tall one so we surrounded it with wood boards and anything we could find to secure the bottm better. Stakes in the ground didnt help, they found weak spots and dug there. The wood boards seems to have stopped it all. For some pests, a few slices of cucumber in an old cake pan deter . There is a chemical reaction when the slices cucumber comes in contact with the metal. Beer is also supposed to help from what ive heard. Ive tried pepper and fox urine around the perimeter. It worked with a smaller garden, but since we've expanded, the pests now have more ways in and ignore the pepper. Good luck!
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Survivalist Forum
11.6M posts
167.1K members
Since 2007
A forum community dedicated to survivalists and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about collections, gear, DIY projects, hobbies, reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more!