Garden Pests

Although one is tempted to go on a rampage when seeing pests feast on your plants, try to control the amount of herbicides and pesticides you use. They are toxic and harmful to pests, pets and even people. Considering that pesticides are poisons, homeowners are remarkably careless with them - they use as much as six times the amount of pesticides per acre as farmers do. So read the labels, even the fine print, and follow the directions. More is not better. Remember that a healthy lawn or garden may mean sick people. The immediate effects are headaches, dizziness, eye problems, rashes, and confusion. The lasting effects are damage to liver, kidneys and central nervous systems; cancer; birth defects and skin disease.

IPM (integrated pest management) is a name given to an old idea: the managed use of biological, cultural, and chemical controls of pests for least harm to the environment and long-term results. Biological control means using natural enemies of pests to wipe them out. Cultural control involves use of pest and weed-discouraging methods of gardening like mowing high so weeds can't grow as easily. Chemical control, the last resort, involves the wise use of pesticides.

Before you spray, assess the pest situation in your garden by going out early in the morning to take a pest census. Look both for the pests themselves (remember to check under leaves) and the damage they have done - holes in leaves, dimpled or distorted leaves.

And consider using kinds of controls other than pesticides. The simplest is to pick pests off your plants by hand. Hose off others, like aphids, with water. Soapy water solution will kill sucking insects like aphides. You can also try:

Tiny biological controls:

1. Milky spore bacteria kill Japanese beetle grubs that eat roots and cause them to wilt and die. The bacteria come in pellet or powder form. This method works slowly.
2. Bacillus thuringiensis (BT), a bacterium comes in a powder used as dust or mixed with water for spraying. BTs can kill caterpillars, potato bugs, and mosquito larvae by paralyzing their digestive systems when eaten.
3. Nematodes, worm-like tiny organisms, kill insects that live below the surface - potato beetles, weevils, cutworms, grubs.

Good Bugs: Good bugs will keep 'bad' bugs down. They include ladybugs, green lacewings, syrphid, tachinid flies, and trichogramma wasps. You can attract good bugs by planting the flowers they like - Artemisia, asters, chamomile, cosmos, dahlia, daisies, marigolds, yarrow, zinnias. Good bugs also like herbs such as caraway, cilantro, dill, fennel, parsley, tansy. Plant the herbs close to the vegetables.

Traps: Traps lure and kill insects. The advantage is that poison is contained within the trap so it is harder for pets and children to get at it. A Japanese beetle trap can eliminate 4000 beetles. Traps are available for gypsy moths and larvae, slugs, yellow jackets, whitefly. Some can be emptied and reused.