Chemical Free Pest Control In The Edible Garden

I have been growing food for 10 years now and I have yet to use any chemical pesticides or fertilizers. Read on for tips on how to grow beautiful chemical free produce at home!

FIRST: CHOOSE AN APPROPRIATE SITE

Choosing a site is the most important step. To grow healthy plants you need an adequate amount of sunlight, at least 6 hours per day, 8 if possible. Also, pay attention to water on your site. How does it move through the proposed garden area? Is it flood prone? Is there access to water? Consider all of these when selecting a spot for your garden.

Second: Tend To The Soil

The importance of your soil health cannot be overstated. Compost that is free from any chemical residue (for example conventional vegetable and fruit scraps which are saturated with pesticides and fungicides) is a must. Composted chicken, cow, or horse manure are also good. Keep in mind that if animals are fed GMO grains, or given chemical wormers and antibiotics, that those compounds will be in their manure and will make their way into your soil, into your food, and into your body. Blood meal, bone meal, worm castings, and liquid kelp are all excellent ways to amend your soil. I like to find weeds with deep roots that have not yet gone to seed (like dandelion, comfrey, mullein, or thistle. Nettle is also great even though it doesn’t have a deep tap root it is still mineral rich) These can be dried outside until they are crispy and then ground up and sprinkled back onto your soil.

About Tilling

Try not to till if at all possible. Why not? Tilling soil kills the microbes. it was explained to me once like this: Tilling soil is similar to if a disaster came through a city and destroyed it, and it had to be rebuilt. Yearly tilling is essentialiy killing most of your soil life on an annual basis. A healthy soil will have millions of microorganisms per square foot and tilling it will kill these organisms, leaving it to have to try to rebuild itself. Also, healthy soil is extremely effective at sequestering carbon, where as tilling releases massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. If you do have to till to prep the garden initially, avoid doing it yearly. A good way to prep an area for planting is to lay cardboard or layers of newspaper down in the shape of your garden space and then add layers of organic material that will break down and create beautiful soil. This is best done in the Fall so that the organic material will have some time to decompose. Examples of good layers: grass clippings, seed free straw, animal manure, veggie scraps, compost, wood chips, top soil, and leaves. If you are prone to clay soil in your area adding a layer of sand may be helpful. I like to end with a woodchip layer because it is excellent at moisture retention. Try to do an inch or 2 of each layer ending with 8-12 inches of organic material. And make sure to balance out the really juicy stuff, like manure and veggie scraps, with drier materials like wood chips, leaves, and straw. At the end of your veggie season when everything comes out either plant a cold weather cover crop or add another few layers of organic material so your beds will be replenished and ready to plant in Spring.

I Thought This Article Was About Pest Control

It is! And we are getting there. Just like a healthy body that gets proper nutrition will be better at protecting itself from disease and recovering from illness, healthy plants are less vulnerable to pests and disease. The only way to get truly healthy plants is healthy soil. And really, it all comes full circle because for our bodies to be truly healthy we have to eat food that was grown in healthy soil. The nutrient content of certain fruits and vegetables has decreased over the last few generations because there are less vitamins and minerals in the soil. And soil that is tilled regularly does not have the soil life present to extract the nutrients that are in the soil and get it to the plants. Humans bag up fruit and veggie scraps in plastic and send them to a landfill and then put chemical fertilizers on the ground to make the food grow. This is clearly a broken system. So, compost instead of trashing things and turn your “garbage” into healthy soil that will grow healthy food that will give you a healthy body. Here is a list of things that can be composted: Fruit and veggie scraps, lint, any organic material from dust pan, uncoated cardboard, tea, coffee, eggshells (although some people rinse them first), grass clippings, weeds that have not yet gone to seed (burn the ones that have gone to seed) leaves, pine needles, seed free straw, uncoated paper plates, and more. Really, just don’t put things into the compost that are man made, like plastic. Also, meat will get smelly (and possibly attract scavenger animals) and bones take too long to break down.

OK, Now For The Pests

There are many different ways to control insect pests in the garden. Here are things I have done and had success with. Let me open this section with this thought though: I do not ever expect to be able to eat 100 percent of my vegetable or fruit crops. I always overplant. We pay tax at the store and taxes out of our paychecks, I expect anywhere from 10-30 percent of the food I grow to go back to the land in one way or another. Be it insects, birds, bunnies, deer, or a freak hailstorm in June. Call it a tax, call it a tithe. I am using the sun, the rain, the pollinators, and the microbes in the soil. These natural systems are enabling me to grow food. Humans are willing to pay a price for food at the store but expect to use everything nature can provide for free, we say, no, thats MY food. I grew that. But the truth is, you didn’t do it by yourself, even though growing things can be hard work at times. Nature is your partner, and partners need to get paid. Almost every year, there have been creatures in nature that have taken some of my crop. Or due to varying weather I may have a bumper crop of peas, for example, but the tomatoes didn’t do as well that year. By planting many things, and looking at everything in nature as your partner and not your adversary you will feel less disheartened. I am not saying invite all the neighborhood deer over for a party to eat your whole garden, because they will. But if a sneaky one gets a few lettuces, it is not the end of the world. Ok, on to the managment tips, for real this time! Scroll down and the problems/solutions will be in bold at the beginning of each section.

A Holistic Approach You Can Use In Any Situation

When I have an insect or a critter that is becoming an issue the first questions I have are:

1) What does that critter eat?

2)What eats the critter?

3) Is there anything that repels the critter?

Then you can decide if you should:

A) Introduce a predator.

B) Cut off it’s food source.

C) Use a plant or herb as a repellant.

D) All of the above.

You should also ask yourself, is this critter really a problem? Are they going to munch a few leaves and be gone? Or will they decimate your crop? Remember that every “pest” is actually part of the food chain. Obtaining a balance, not complete vanquishing of every insect, should be the objective.

An example: This year we had a pill bug problem. Yes, pill bugs! I had never really considered them a pest before, more of an ally because they can be used to entertain a toddler. But this year they came out in record numbers and they were devouring our tiny seedlings! We researched pill bug predators and found that toads were one, and one that we had already seen on our garden because they like to hide in the deep wood chip mulch. After learning more about the accomodations that toads prefer, we made the areas of the yard and garden that we had seen the highest number of pill bugs more toad friendly by adding a shallow pan of water with a few rocks in it (pollinators also love these) and turning a terra cotta pot upside down for the toad to use as a shelter. (We used a hammer to smash a toad sized opening out or the side of the pot) Decorating the pot can be a fun project for kids. They also sell adorable ready made toad houses. We also put a few smooth rocks on the ground near the pot and inside of it for bugs to hide and the toad to eat. Within a couple of weeks of setting up the toad houses we found that there were still a few pill bugs, but not the massive numbers we had seen before. The bonus of this sysem is that the toads are not just eating pill bugs, they are eating many different bugs. You can come up with solutions like this for any pest problem. It is as simple as basic addition or subtraction. Pest+predator= less pests. Pests – food supply = less pests. It is so simple, and so much better than putting poison into the ground. That poison will find its way into the water supply, kill wildlife and destroy the microbial diversity of the soil. The poison glyphosate is so prevalent in our environment now because of its widespread agricultural use that it can actually be found in measurable amounts in our rainwater.

Observation is also important. Your pest problems will vary from year to year, and truly, from month to month, based on weather and other variables. Spending time in your garden everyday and looking at the plants up close is key to catching a problem before it gets out of control.

Deer

Deer are overpopulated and have become a major problem in the United States. In the 1930’s the deer population was estimated to be about 300, 000. Now it is estimated at 30,000,000. A hundredfold increase in less than one hundred years. Not only are they eating everyones gardens and fruit trees, but they are major vectors for tick born illnesses. Not to mention that deer are responsible for more human deaths in our country than any other animal because of the auto accidents they commonly cause. So first and foremost, hunting regulations on these animals need to be relaxed. If you are so inclined reach out to your city, county, and state legislators to see how you can be involved in making this happen. Until then though here are some things you can try.

A twelve foot high fence. Ok, you could probably get away with an 8 foot fence but deer proof fencing is the most expensive and labor intensive solution. If you can and want to, then really this is your most deer proof option.

A barrier using fishing line. Pound 4 foot t-posts into the corners of your garden. Then use fishing line to wrap around the t-posts at about the height of a deers chest. The theory is that they cannot see it, but when they try to move in to use your garden as a buffet they feel the fishing line on their chest and it weirds them out so they leave. I have seen this method work for people.

A Dog. This has proven most effective for us, the caveat is that it has to be a dog who spends a majority of their time outside. A house dog who only ventures outside to relieve themselves and bark at the mailman may not be much help. We have a Great Pyrenees in our barnyard and a heeler in the yard of our home, both do a great job of letting deer know they are not welcome. (Although I did see a deer actually chasing the heeler one time, not sure what that was about.) The bonus is they keep predators away from our animals too.

Mark your territory. Apparently, peeing around the perimeter of your garden may keep deer away, alerting them humans are in the area. Make sure you do not do this in view of your neighbors as it may not be appreciated.

Motion Activated Sprinkler. So much potential for comic entertainment with a motion activated sprinkler. I am almost positive that if I used this option I would be getting sprayed way more often than the deer. If you are a person who is really good at remembering things, like when to turn the motion activated sprinkler off, then this could be a great option for you.

Squash Bugs, Vine Borers, Hornworms, And Other “Bad Bugs”

Keep an eye out. These are the worst garden baddies because they have the propensity to take out a crop relatively quickly. This is where observation becomes a powerful tool. If you don’t go into the garden and actually look at the leaves for a week or two that is enough time for the squash bug numbers to have exploded or the hornworms to have completely defoliated the tomatoes. (And peppers, we found out one year!) So make sure to be in the garden at least every few days checking the underside of leaves. I like to carry a bucket of water and drop all the pests into it, and then dump in out for my chickens to feast on. If you see yellow or brown leaves on a plant or droppings on a leaf, investigate! Look on the underside of all the leaves of a plant. I also use a trick sometimes of dumping out a full bucket of water right around the stem of the plant where it is coming out of the ground. This will sometimes make them come running out tryng to avoid the flood. Then I scoop them up and drop them in my bucket. Or squish them.

Enlist the help of children. I have four daughters, 3 of whom who are old enough to be legitimate garden helpers. Something I have found to be very effective over the years is enlisting them as bug catchers. I show them pictures from the internet or field guides of the bad insects in all their incarnations, (egg, larvae or juvenile, adults) and I explain what they damage they do in a garden, and send them on their way. I have also at times given them a sort of uniform with a bucket of water, a net, and a little homemade flip book with pictures of their targets printed and pasted onto notecards and then hole punched and placed on a metal ring. That can be put on a string and then they have their little bad bug guide necklace at their fingertips if they get confused. I think it also makes them feel a bit more official.

Their little eyes are so focused, and they have a different vantage point than we do. They are the perfect helpers for this task because children are so good at seeing what adult eyes miss. I also show them to look for droppings, this is especially helpful with spotting hornworms. I pay them a penny each for bug eggs and 5-10 cents for bugs themselves. When they are done collecting we feed them to our chickens or guinea hens, far away from the garden.

If you do not have young children then borrow some from a friend, relative, or neighbor. It will be like a science lesson for the children and they will feel good doing something real and helpful. Take the dollars you could spend on poison and pay a young person to hand pick the bugs. If they are unfamiliar with gardening a training session of showing them how to stay on paths and where the insects might hide, as well as how to be gentle with plants is in order. Try to have someone go out and bug pick at least once a week during garden season. Also, whether you are bug picking yourself or have little helpers, picking early in the morning or an hour or two before dusk is best. There will be more insects active and the weather is not stifling. Having children in the garden during the hottest part of the day is a good way to make them dislike gardening. We want the next generation of earth stewards to have pleasant memories of garden tasks and the outdoors in general!

Plant Resistant Varieties. This applies to the squash, as I have not yet come across hornworm resistant tomatoes. I have had great luck with rampicante squash (also called tromboncino), delicata, and luffa. A great way to find resistant varieties that work well in your area is to ask other gardeners which brings me to my next tip:

Stay Connected. I don’t really use FaceBook for anything other than gardening and foraging. Find a local gardening group, (or two, or three), in your area. This is absolutely the best place to gain regional gardening knowledge. You can connect with other gardeners (some of whom are actually master gardeners, or permaculturists, or have gardened for forty years, etc.) to ask questions and get inspiration. One of my favorite things about it is that it provides me with a heads up on bad bugs. When I start seeing posts about a particular pest I get out into my garden and 9 times out of ten, there they are. But, without the reminder to keep an eye out for them they could have easily done much more damage.

Leave The Wasps Alone. Yes having wasps build their nest on your house is no fun. Instead of killing them with poison, knock the nests down (and quickly run away) so they can disperse and build the nest somewhere else. Why? Wasp larvae acts as a parasite on many pests, hornworms are a good example. Wasps are a good way to keep other insect populations in check.

Succession Planting. For certain crops with a relatively short time between planting a seed and reaping fruit, (like bush squash for example) once the plant gets established I tuck in another seed near it. If the main plant gets overtaken by squash bugs and vine borers I can tear it out after its first flush and I will have anouther ready to set fruit in a couple of weeks. In some places with a longer growing season you can plant 3 or more rounds of bush squash. Their production is most prolific at the beginning of their lifespan, so this is also a great method to increase yield.

Companion Plant. The basic plants for deterring pests are things like marigolds, nasturtiums, and various herbs. I love to plants chives, garlic, herbs, and flowers bordering my veggie beds and fruit trees. There are many easy charts on companion planting in books and on the internet. In nature, there are never massive amounts of one kind of plant with no other plants around at all. An organized veggie garden is easier to manage but planting a couple different varieties and herbs in the same bed with some garlic and onion on the edges and repellent flowers on the end caps can still be organized and manageable.

Rotate Your Crops. Many pests can overwinter in the soil. So when creating a garden plan try to come up with 5 or 6 different areas. They could be rows, they could be garden boxes, whatever works for your garden. What is best is a rotation that allows for no crop (or members of the same crop family, like tomatoes and potatoes are both nightshades and affected by the same pests) to be planted in the same bed in a five year period, and also for each bed itself to be rested once every 5-7 years and left in cover crop. This may not possible in your gaden because maybe you are doing a raised bed or two, do not let that discourage you. Just do the things you can do!

Invite wild birds to the party. In some case, birds can be a garden pest. We will get to that later, but a healthy wild bird popluation can be invaluable in controlling insects. So put a bird bath near your garden (but not next to your toad habitat) and hang a bird feeder to draw them in. They are also attracted to bright colors and love to eat sunflowers. (I suggest protecting your sunflowers heads with paper bags as the seeds are beginning to plump if you are growing them for eating, but leave a couple uncovered for birds.)

Use Chickens, Guinea Hens, and Ducks. All of these will eat lots of bugs and be incredibly beneficial to your homestead. I don’t let any of them in the garden when the plants are very young as they can get trampled easily and gobbled in a single bite. I use chicken in the Winter, they dig in the garden and will find all the overwinting grubs. In the garden season months we keep them in a mobile chicken tractor that we move onto fresh grass daily. We let them out to range for an hour or two before dusk, and only under supervision. We have a small flock of guineas that are free range all year. We coop them at night to protect them from predators. Ducks are so darn cute, they do not dig, and their specialty is eating slugs. Keep a little kiddie pool for them near the garden and dump the water right on the garden every couple of days when you refresh it.

Birds

Birds will eat berries and tree fruits, but will also help to control insects. They are beautiful and entertaining to watch and provide a lovely song, for your ears and the benefit of the plants. There have been studies that show playing certain types of music can help plants grow, birdsong has to have a benefit.

Birds do love to eat fruit though, so let’s talk about how to stop that.

Netting. This is probably the best option. When your bushes set fruit cover them with netting. Check your netting a couple of times per day if possible though, sometimes birds can become entangled and if they stay stuck for too long they will die. This can also be implemented on fully dwarf fruit trees.

Startle Them. You can use a scarecrow, play loud music or an audio book, hang chimes, aluminum cans, or streamers from the trees, etc. Birds are smart though, and these scare tactics won’t last forever. Rotate them every week or so during the time when your fruit crop is close to harvest to be most effective.

Provide Alternative Food Sources. When we start to notice the fruit is close to being ready or can see birds taking an interest in it, we put out bird feeders. Birds like corn as well, so planting a few corn plants near your fruit tree and timing it to be ready right before the fruit is would be a good bet. Also having food avilable in your landscape, that is specifically for them is a good way to get them to leave the other food alone. A crabapple tree, for example, is a tree that birds love to eat the fruit from.

Fruit Bags. This is labor intensive but works well for fully dwarf fruit trees. You simply put a little gauze bag on the fruit when it is small and wait for it to fully develop.

Moles, Rabbits, Groundhogs, Squirrels

Get a cat that lives mostly outdoors.

Be Ok With Little Losses.

Every year I lose a few plants to moles and groundhogs. It is usually early in the season. This loss does not make me want to eradicate moles or groundhogs. I try to replace the plants I lost if it is not too late, if it is, I just count it as a loss and move on. If I started experiencing more loss from these creatures, I would get another cat. This year cut worms were a problem in the early Spring, they took out several tomato and cucumber plants and that was it. Always overplant. Plan on growing more than you will need and make peace with the fact that there will be losses. If you have a favorable year regarding pests, plant diseases, and weather, then you will be able to give away, preserve, or sell your excess. And remember that the benefits you gain by being in the garden cannot be measured in bushels and pounds. Gardening is excellent for your mental and physical well being. This is especially true when you have a cooperative rather than adversarial relationship with nature. Nature also reminds us that we are never fully in control. Supermarkets give us the illusion of being totally in charge, but if the trucks and trains stoppped running the food would run out quickly. Knowing how to coax food from the soil is a skill you will always have and can pass on to others.

Diversity Equals Resilience. In the home garden there should be many yields. Not just tomatoes or peppers, but also lettuces, berries, cucumbers, potatoes, etc. If you decide to plant one thing, like 15 tomato plants and nothing else for example, then if it so happens to be hard year for tomatoes because of pests, weather, or disease, you run the risk of not yielding anything for your hard work. But if you plant 15 different crops and several of them are a complete fail, chances are a few will also be a bumper crop. I have never had a year go exactly the same. This year it was a late start to Summer, so while my usual complaint where I live is not a long enough period of cool weather to grow cool weather crops, this year I grew more peas than I ever have, and cabbages too, but its going to be a slow start for tomatoes and peppers. Just like in an investment portfolio diversity is key, diversity in the garden is a very important factor to success.

There Is NO Magical Fix

This is so important to remember. In our culture we have been conditioned, by advertisers, to believe that one product should be able to completely solve all problems. That is the approach we have taken to agriculture and our health for generations and the cracks are beginning to show, aren’t they? My childrens generation is the first generation of humans whose life is expected to last fewer years than their parents. Yes, the actual human lifespan is on the decline. There are companies inventing many products and pills and gadgets to try and figure their way out of the mess humanity has made for itself, and turn a profit in the process. But the answer is actually simple: a holistic approach. A culture that observes their environment, their bodies, and then responds. More holistic (and when I say holistic I mean that everything is connected and we need to honor that, not deny it) results. Less warning labels and long lists of side effects.

The attitude that is prevalent now of “Here is the magical powder/product/pill that will fix this problem. If it harms me or the environment or another person a little, that is ok, because this is the only solution” is short sighted, lazy, and hugely misinformed. We should not need drugs to live a healthy life. The ground does not need poison or chemical fertilizer to grow food. Those methods are in fact bandaids, under which lies a deep and festering wound which will never ever heal. They bring more problems. So: Observe. Research. Learn. Be empowered. Our bodies can heal. Nature can heal. We just have to make the choices that allow for that.

Our country has been making poor choices regarding the food we put into our bodies and how it is grown for decades now. These choices were made because people were told these products were fine. The results are in though. The processed foods we were told were a convenient and wholesome replacement? They eroded our health. The chemicals used in agriculture that promised to make farming easier and feed the masses? They have destroyed our soil, contaminated our water, and poisoned our bodies. People were lied to. Now we live in different times though. Answers are just one creative GOOGLE search away.

We cannot be angry at what our ancestors did, they were lied to and they had no access to the information that exists now. But we do. And future generations will hold us accountable. Having access to the information that we do makes us culpable. I want to make my children proud and I want the world they grow old in to be full of beauty and nourishment. So, instead of a quick fix, learn something new. Gain understanding. Do not be intimidated by change, embrace it like a friend. There is much change needed now, so get comfortable with it. Share your knowledge and experiences. Let us be the generation that says, no more poison on the soil, no more poison in our bodies. Wouldn’t that be an amazing legacy?

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