Dealing with Garden Pests

While tending to my own garden, I have found that one of the most

frustrating things that can happen to a gardener is to walk outside to

check on your plants. It’s just a routine walk to make sure that your

garden is thriving, but you end up finding holes in all of your plants

that looked fine only hours before. The explanations for some of these

plant-destroying holes are garden pests. Some of the main garden pests are

slugs, worms, caterpillars, birds, snails, and the occasional gopher.

Although you can never wipe out these pests entirely, after all your hard

work in the garden you have to do something.

Insects are one of the worst things to have in your garden; they can live

under the soil, in old weeds or piles of leaves, or in a number of other

places. In order to help keep insects away, always try and eliminate

places in your garden and near your garden that these insects and other

plant diseases could be living. Remove old leaves, weeds, or any other

decaying matter that insects and diseases could be living in from your

yard. Also, regularly turn over your garden soil and break apart any

clumps of dirt so that you can eliminate the living spaces any insects

that might be hiding underground.

Another way to rid your garden of the pests is to use dormant spray, which

is used to keep destructive insects and diseases under control. It is best

that you use dormant spray when your plants are dormant, usually around

February or early March. I have used dormant spray many times on my garden

and it has worked wonders on keeping insects out. But as I learned from

experience, dormant spray is only effective if you follow the correct

instructions. When I first decided to use some on my garden, I just dumped

it everywhere in hopes of killing everything harmful. Unfortunately I

ended up killing my entire garden along with my neighbors. Some insects

can be beneficial to your garden though, so be sure to find out which

insects help your garden.

Another pest problem I've had besides insects has been birds. Whenever I

see birds in my garden I run outside a chase them away, but as soon as I

step inside they come right back. The solution that I've come up with to

keep the birds away from my garden is to put a bird feeder in my yard.

Instead of costing me time and money by eating my garden, the birds eat at

the bird feeder. In the long run it’ll save you money. Not only can a bird

feeder help keep birds away from your garden, but they can also be a new

part of your yard decoration. Although not completely eliminating my bird

problem, my bird feeder has made the problem smaller. Getting a dog has

also helped.

If you start seeing mounds of dirt around your yard, and your plants keep

unexplainably dieing, you can assume that you have a gopher problem.

Thankfully, this is one of the few garden pasts that I haven't had.

However my friend has struggled with a tremendous gopher infestation, so I

decided to research it. Gophers are rodents that are five to fourteen

inches long. Their fur can be black, light brown, or white, and they have

small tails. One method of getting rid of these root-eating pests is to

set traps. The key to successfully capturing a gopher using a trap is to

successfully locate the gopher's tunnels and set the trap correctly.

Another way to get rid of them is to use smoke bombs, which you place into

the tunnel and the smoke spreads through out it and hopefully reaches the

gopher.

If you suspect that your gardens are being pillaged by any of the pests I

mentioned, I encourage you to try your hardest to eliminate the problem as

soon as possible. The longer you let the species stay, the more

established it will become.