To identify garden pests, you can look for specific sign on the leaves of the plants. Identifying the type of pest that is present is the first step in managing your garden. By being able to correctly identify the pest in your garden, you can ensure that the methods you use to control those pests will be efective.
There are two main groups of garden pests: sucking pests and chewing pests. Sucking pests, such as aphids or spider mites, will drain the fluids out of the leaves of the plants. These types of pests can cause the leaves of the plants to turn yellow and can also spread virus to the plants.
How to Spot and Control Garden Pests
Chewing pests, such as caterpillars or flea beetles, will eat at the tissue of the leaves of the plants. These types of pests will leave hole in the leaves. It is much easier to see chewing pests than it is to seeing sucking pests.
Aphids are a type of sucking pest that typically have the shape of a pear. Aphids often live in clusters on the plants. Aphids eat the sap from the plants and can cause the leaves of the plants to curl.
Beneficial insects, such as ladybugs and lacewings, eat aphids. You can attract these beneficial insects to your garden by planting dill or fennel near the plants in your garden. By doing so, you can manage the aphids in your garden without the need for chemical spray to kill the aphids.
Using chemical sprays to kill aphids will also kill these beneficial insects that eat the aphids. Slugs and snails are not insect, but they can still be detrimental to the plants in your garden. These pests are nocturnal, meaning that they are active during the night.
The slugs and snails will leave behind slime on the leaves of the plants and stings in the plants, such as lettuce. You can manage the slugs and snails in your garden with iron phosphate bait or copper barrier. These types of barriers will target the slugs and snails that is in your garden.
You can also prevent slugs and snails from entering your garden by removing any pile of debris where they may hide. Beneficial insects eat the pests in your garden. Ground beetles eat the cutworms and slugs in the soil.
Parasitic wasps eat the caterpillars in the garden. By planting border of flowering plants, you can attract these beneficial insects to your garden. By attracting these beneficial insects, the garden will maintain a natural balance within the garden.
With many beneficial insects in the garden, you will not have to constant manage the pests in your garden. You can use the different types of damage that the pests can leave behind in your garden to identify which type of pests are in your garden. If you see yellowing of the leaves, this is a sign that there are sucking insects, such as whiteflies, in your garden.
If you see stippling and spots on the leaves, this is a sign that there are mites in your garden. If the vine in your garden are wilting, check the plants for squash bugs. The aphids will eat the sap from the plants and cause the leaves to wilt.
If the leaves of your plants are experiencing stunted growth and curled tips, this is a sign of aphids or psyllids. Check the undersides of leaves for these pests. Organic methods of managing pests in the garden include the use of neem oil, diatomaceous earth, row covers, and BT spray.
You can use neem oil to smother the soft-bodied pests in your garden. However, use neem oil at dusk so as not to kill the bees in the garden. Diatomaceous earth will kill the crawling pests in the garden, such as cutworms.
Reapply the diatomaceous earth after it rain. Row covers will prevent the flying pests from accessing the seedling in your garden. BT spray targets the caterpillars in your garden.
This method is safe for other insects in the garden. One of the many mistake that many individuals do in their gardens is treating the symptoms of the pests rather than treating the cause. The cause of the pests leaving holes in the leaves may be the presence of aphids, but treating the aphids with soap will not kill the aphid eggs on the leaves.
Inspect the undersides of the leaves and the stems of the plants on a daily basis. This will allow you to find the aphid eggs and treat them early in their lifecycle. Rotating your crop every year will prevent the build-up of pest populations in your garden.
Additionally, having healthy soil in which to plant your seeds will allow the plants to grow strong, and strong plants are more resistant to the presence of pests in the garden. In addition to the methods described above, there are a few other tool that can assist in the management of pests in your garden. You can apply Kaolin clay directly to the plants to form a dusty film around the plants that confuses pests like leafhoppers and stink bugs.
Sticky traps will catch the thrips and whiteflies in the garden. However, place the sticky traps in the proper locations in the garden so that the beneficial insects do not get caught in the trap. Beneficial nematodes will hunt for grubs in the soil in your garden, and they will hunt for these grubs while the grubs sleep in the soil overnight.
Use each of these tool for specific types of pests in your garden.