We specialize in pest control for your home, but it's just as important to utilize organic pest control for your garden. The pest application techniques for a garden and a home are vastly different. We recommend an organic pest control approach for your garden.
Soil Health is #1
Before you grab chemical pest control solutions, whether organic or not, the first step in preventing pests in your garden is having healthy soil. Healthy soil does not always prevent pest problems but does make healthy plants. Most pests and plant diseases will gravitate toward unhealthy plants. Starting your plants off with healthy soil will provide them with less chance of pest problems, and more chance of overcoming pest problems if they do arise. There is nothing worse than losing an entire crop to pests, especially if you’ve spent most of the season tending to those plants with time, energy, and love.
Tips for Healthy Soil:
- Be intentional about where you source your compost, soil, and soil amendments - choose sources that are OMRI certified.
- Add compost to your soil at least once every season
- Break up the soil with a broad fork
- Test your soil if needed
Be Vigilant and Be Ready
There is no prevention of some pests. No matter how hard you try, they will come as soon as summer hits. The best prevention against pests, aside from chemical applications is going to be hand-picking the insects off the plants. Yes…it sounds very tedious, but it is worth it.
Japanese Beetles, for example, will be found on your plant leaves in June. Just bring a cup of soapy water out to your garden and flick them in one by one. During the summer, this should be done daily. Hand-picking off the pests will help eliminate the need for chemical products, even organic ones.
OMRI-Certified Organic Pest Control Products
You may find that you need or want to try a chemical solution and we recommend you find one that is OMRI-certified. OMRI certification is a 3rd party certification that assures that products used for farming or gardening are rated for USDA organic production. Your soil, compost, and pest control products should all be OMRI listed, to ensure the highest safety.
Popular OMRI certified pest products for your garden are:
Companion Planting Tips to Prevent Pests
Lastly, other plants can be great for organic pest control. A great example of this is marigolds, which secrete alpha-terthienyl from their roots. This aids in preventing root-knot nematode eggs from developing. Marigolds can be planted by nearly every other plant. When you purposefully plant two plants near one another, for a specific benefit, that is called companion planting.
Other great examples of companion planting for pest control include:
- Chives and Coriander prevent aphids
- Oregano and Sage prevent cabbage moths
- Basil can reduce mosquito populations
- Garlic and Rue can prevent Japanese Beetles from munching on your rose bushes
Organic Pest Control for Your Garden
We don’t treat home gardens, but we hope these tips will help you as you plan ways to prevent pests in your garden this year. The safety of the food you consume is important, which is why you should use organic pest control for your garden
If you have any questions about organic pest control for your garden, contact our knowledgeable customer service team at (844) 922-7732.
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