Green Tips: Non-chem pest management

Maybe it’s all the rain but the bugs have grown teeth this year—  the mosquito bites hurt more than usual and the black flies are seemingly worse than ever. More than one adult I know who doesn’t use makeup is now digging out their teen’s foundation and employing makeup sticks in an attempt to disguise the insect bite-inflicted welts on their faces and necks.

In between swats at the flies, home gardeners are challenged with trying to keep other rain-loving, plant-devouring pests at bay. While there are no magic “anti-welcome” mats yet for insect pests, there are lots of tricks that can help. The following list is compiled from tips found in a variety of books, on-line resources and Valley Gardener friends living in the Mount Washington Valley.

Non-toxic home remedies for managing insect pests

For yourself:

1. Mosquito netting is a great way for those working around the home or garden to protect their face and neck from insect bites.

2. Citronella candles and sprays can also help though some can be allergic to citronella oil. Other leading ingredients in natural bug sprays that may help include eucalyptus, pennroyal, teatree, geranium, balsam, orange, rosemary and a variety of essential oils to name a few.

For your plants:

1. Maintaining a healthy garden is the best defense against pests, according to EarthEasy.com. Prepare your soil with natural organic compost and fertilizer. Use seaweed mulch or a mix of seaweed concentrate and water to enrich your soil. Pull weak plants. And grow more than you think you’ll need. You’re more apt to end up with what you need and can always share any excess with friends and family.

2. When it’s not raining and you need to water your garden, water in the morning. The plants will dry out more quickly and be less apt to attract fungi and bad insects that are attracted to excessive moisture on plants especially on cool nights.

3. Practice crop rotation (Do not grow the same plant family in the same spot year after year. Rotate vegetable families – pea/bean, cabbage, cucumber tomato/pepper.) Interplanting a variety of crops among each other also helps prevent certain bugs from taking out a whole line of crops.

4. Plant flowers, parsley and mint! Many flowers such as zinnia and marigolds and mint plants such as spearmint and peppermint repel some times of pests. Other flowers such as yarrow, asters, black-eyed susan’s, and daisies attract beneficial insects like ladybugs, damselflies, lacewings, hover-flies and praying mantis that eat harmful insects.

5. Place some birdbaths near your garden, and you may encourage some birds to find bad insects for you. Beware of using birdfeeders in the summer though as they attract bears.

6. Try spraying the undersides of plants with mixtures of natural soap and water. Some report that ground garlic strained out of mixtures with soap and water can help. I’ve successfully dusted roses against aphids with flour.

7. Not for those who can’t kill a fly… Japanese beetles and some other insects may best be removed by hand. Save your pizza boxes! You can put an open box under plants and give them a jiggle to catch the bugs and dump them into a soapy solution.

8. Have slugs? This is also a little much for the faint of heart, but pouring the slugs some cheap beer in a shallow dish will bait them to drink and drown. Sorry, but it works.

9. Then, there are barriers. According to PlanetNatural.com, ants hate cucumber peels and they and many other insects also hate barriers of ground up garlic, salt, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, bone meal, talcum powder and chalk. Different pests have different aversions, so you’ll have to try placing different barriers around your plants to see what works. To deter ants in their Valley Community Gardens, garden managers have been making barriers of sweet fern found plentifully around the valley.

10. Other kinds of barriers for pests such as cutworms that eat/cut through plants at the ground level include paper collars. You can make one simply by making a paper collar approximately 2 inches high and wrapping it around the stem, ideally, as you transplant plants in the garden. Provide some space around the plant so it can grow and anchor the collar down about an inch in the soil. Valley Community Gardeners have been placing nails around their plants to cut out the cutworm.

The Mount Washington Valley Green Team is scheduled to host a free workshop on natural solutions to controlling garden pests on Saturday, July 16, beginning at 11 a.m. at the Valley Community Garden on Tasker Hill in Conway. The garden is located at 397 Tasker Hill Road, on the left, eight-tenths of a mile from the intersection of Route 153. For more information, contact Sarah Audsley at mwvgardens@gmail.com.

Valley Green Tips is brought to you by the Mount Washington Valley Green Team, a non-profit group dedicated to greening the Valley through programs including Valley Community Gardens, MWV Friends of Recycling and MWV Climate Challenge.