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Homemade Pest Barriers for Your Vegetable Garden

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One of the most satisfying and relaxing hobbies is gardening. Growing your own vegetables offers a lot of benefits. For one, you’re almost always assured of healthy food. This is especially true if you’re using organic methods in caring for your crops. Two, owning your own vegetable garden also allows you to save money. After all, you won’t have to purchase vegetables from your local grocery store, since you can simply pick them from your own garden. Three, gardening is a great way to boost your mood. The repetitive task can help reduce your stress, and when you see your vegetable garden flourishing, it can easily bring a smile to your face.

However, tending to your vegetable garden can also be a bit stressful. You have to protect it against the different weather conditions, and most importantly, you have to protect it against pests. If you don’t want to use pesticides, then here are some homemade pest barriers that you can do for your vegetable garden.

Homemade Plant Cover

Plant covers not only help retain the soil’s heat, but it can also help you a lot if you want to plant early. In addition to these, plant covers can also protect your plants from pestiferous insects as well as rodents.

In creating your own plant cover, all you will need are woven plastic and wooden frame. You can also make use of wire frame as well as muslin. Setting this up is easy if you have basic carpentry skills. You only have to build the frame and cover it with the muslin or the woven plastic. Once done, simply cover the plants you want protected and secure the entry points by placing weights over them. This can keep pestiferous pests and small rodents from damaging the plants.

Homemade Screen Cones

Cabbage is susceptible to maggots and other insect pests. If you want to protect the young plants from these pests, what you can do is to make homemade screen cones. These pest barriers work similarly to plant covers in such a way that you place the cone over the young plant, preventing pests from damaging the cabbage.

What you need are the same materials – a strip of wood and a woven plastic. Shape the woven plastic into a cone. See to it that it’s big enough to cover the plant without crowding it. Once done, secure the edges on the wood. You can simply pin the edges of the screen on the wood and secure it with small nails or staple it shut.

Screen cones can not only prevent maggots from chewing through the roots, but it can also prevent flies from laying their eggs on the plant. These eggs, when they hatch, become the maggots that attack the roots.

When to Call a Pest Control Company

These pest barrier methods are very effective in controlling the pest population in your vegetable garden. However, if these methods don’t work and your plants are unhealthy and/or dying, then maybe it’s time to call your local pest control company. Just see to it though that the company offers green services to get rid of insect pests, particularly since you don’t want toxic chemicals to contaminate your garden’s soil and plants.

Attached Images:
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Jennifer Dallman contributes articles to a number of pest control blogs, including http://www.preventivepestcontrol.com/ Owning a vegetable garden is very rewarding, but if your garden is infested with pestiferous insects, then be sure to get rid of them the organic and safe way.

 






Planning a vegetable garden

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Here’s some common questions that new gardeners often ask, and the answers too!

Q. I want to start vegetable gardening this year. This is going to be my New Year’s resolution. What are some things I should consider to be successful?

A. Start with keeping a gardening journal. In this journal, you should start with a diagram of the area you are planning to garden. Keep a record with a drawing of what plants you planted where. Also keep track of what varieties of plants that you use. Try to keep records of their yields. That way you will know what was successful and what was not.

Keep a record of the general weather of each week, especially any unusual weather of extreme heat conditions and lack of rain. Keep track of the timing of your planting dates, and the timing of pruning, fertilizing and when the harvest begins.

Second, go out and sample the soil for testing.

You need just a small sample taken about 6 inches in depth taken at several places near the edges and in the middle. Mix these together in a clean bucket, then take out about half of a pint to be sampled. You want just the basic garden sample analysis. They will give you the results and indicate what you will need to build your soil for a good mineral content.

As spring approaches, it will take a little longer to get back results. So as long as the soil is not frozen, take the sample as soon as possible.

Third, send for some seed catalogs. You can look through these and get ideas. But remember the pictures are taken of the best results. Try to find a neighbor who gardens and find out what varieties he grows.

In the beginning, try the All-American varieties. These have been tested all over the United States and have won honors for producing the best yields consistently in all the various locations. Notice which varieties are suggested for what uses. Different tomatoes can be used for fresh salads, for pastes, for juice or for canning.

Fourth, get a copy of the 2007 Old Farmer’s Almanac. For about $6, you will get a lot of information on gardening. Some of the information will work for you and others may not. If you are planning on growing radishes, use their table on when to plant root crops. Otherwise you usually end up with just tops and no edible roots at all. Other information will help you through the winter months. Some gardeners rely on their dates for weeding, harvesting for the best quality, transplanting and pruning.

Fifth, go to the library or book store and find the book “Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew. This is a great reference on how many plants of each vegetable type you will need to plant for the number of people you plan to feed. You have to control your enthusiasm as you do not need to plant hundreds of plants as you may think. Planting too large of an area will wear you out and give you burn-out very quickly. It also has some interesting and unusual planting ideas to keep things simple.

Remember to keep the log going for your records as the old saying goes- ‘Those that don’t study history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. This is especially true with gardening.

If a variety does not work out for you this year with the weather that we have, don’t plant it again next year. Stay with the varieties that give you success. Discard the others. Every year will give you new knowledge.

I got this list of helpful tips from the Belleville News.

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