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How to Keep Your Vegetable Garden Free of Pests

By: Irwin Brewington

If you have a vegetable garden then you know that can you lose quite a bit of the harvest to pests every year, this is why people adopt various methods of pest control. If you make sure to keep your plants properly cultivated, fertilized, and watered they should show a good degree of resistance to pests. You can begin by buying plant varieties that are resistant to some types of pests.

Some varieties of plants are even resistant to common plant diseases, however few plants can stave off insects. One way to prevent pests is to only grow plants from newly purchased seeds, don't save old seeds to be re-used in a new garden. Plant diseases often originate in seeds. If you purchase new seed each year from reputable dealers that sell high-quality, pest-free seeds, you will give your garden a fresh, new start each year. Make certain that you plant healthy, strong little seedlings, if you are transplanting. More vulnerable for certain types of pests, plants which are spindly, too old or too young, or weak will likely not survive the shock of being transplanted.

In order to manage diseases which are carried in the soil, it's wise to, rotate the vegetables which you grow in your garden yearly. A good strategy along this line is alternate corn and other crops in the garden. Following corn with cole crops like cabbage, broccoli, and greens, cole crops with solanaceous crops like tomatoes, potatoes, and pepper, solanaceous crops with legumes like peas or beans and legumes with corn again is an acceptable four year rotation.

Good sanitation in your garden is another way to keep the pests at bay, clear out any cull piles or infested crops. Pests can survive in plant remains, so it is not a good idea to use plant parts or culled plants for mulching. Straw, leaves, and other non garden materials are great choices of things to mulch with. There are many advantages to using much, but it also has one glaring weakness you should know about. Mulch allows some insects to survive inside of it and they are able to reach your plant without you noticing them.

Being sanitary is one key thing to practice in order to prevent spreading plant viruses within your garden. Soap and water should be used to wash any hand tools before transplanting or pruning is done. Believe it or not, gardeners that use tobacco products need to wash their hands especially, because many plant viruses can be passed through tobacco to your garden.

Weeds are another hiding place for many unwanted pests. Certain weeds exist that will actually attract the pests to your garden all by themselves, so keep weeds out of your garden and also away from the exterior of it as well. Some of the most common pests that dwell in weeds include aphids, beetles, leafhoppers, mites and nematodes, all of which can spread plant disease and cause other types of damages to your plants. Keep your garden well weeded and make sure to clear away any Johnson Grass, it is a perennial weed which can often hide harmful pests.

Keeping a healthy level of moisture can also help keep your garden free of any pests. If you want to keep disease to a minimum, water early in the day. You will probably be able to avoid using a fungicide if you water at the proper time of day. Watering at night is especially harmful because the plants remain moist longer, this can create a fungus invasion especially since fungus flourishes in warm, wet places.

You can erect a barrier around newly transplanted members of your garden to protect from insects. There are countless tools you can use for this that you already have laying around like shingles, cardboard, or milk jugs so long as you give the plant a few inches to breathe. Wire worms, grubs, cutworms and other insects that can attack your plant from beneath the soil will be unable to get through this type of barrier. Aside from barriers and proper maintenance, using biological methods to control your pests, such as using a predator insect to destroy insects that eat your vegetables can often work well. Praying mantis, ladybugs, lacewings, syrphid flies, ground beetles and spiders are all types of predator insects that gardeners have learned to introduce to their gardens, but then they avoid destroying them.

Pesticides are the last option you should go to if you are having a hard time removing a pest population from your garden by non-chemical means. It's critical to read and obey the instructions on the label. If it instructs you to wait a certain amount of time before the harvest to spray then do so, otherwise it may actually do harm to your plants.

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