Garden Medley

Many insects are just a pain in your garden. They damage your plants and don’t provide a benefit. But you don’t want to go spray a bunch of chemicals on foods you’re planning on eating.

All is not lost. There are natural ways to control the pests in your garden.

Garlic and onions can be quite effective. Liquify these and spray them onto soft body insects to kill them. It can also paralyze flies. A garlic or onion spray can work as a fungicide too.

You can include hot peppers with your garlic or onion spray to make it stronger if you like. Hot peppers can also be effective on it’s own, but the garlic really can help. Sprinkle it about to discourage rabbits and other small animals. (more…)

I was watching my local news the other day when the went into the garden segment. Many of the tips are more for my area, but this one should be pretty universal.

If you grow lettuce and other vegetables, rabbits and other such critters can be a major problem. I’ve gone over some tactics in the past on how to keep them out without poisons. This one I hadn’t heard yet.

Get some plastic snakes and put them in your garden around the plants you want to protect. Rabbits and other small animals are very afraid of snakes, and won’t realize these are fakes, especially if you move them around regularly. (more…)

Keeping the snails under control in your garden in some areas can be a lot of work. They appear by the dozens or even hundreds a day for many gardeners. Getting rid of them takes patience and persistence.

If you have children, this is one job they can be trained to help with. Snails are easy to pick up and many kids are fascinated by bugs of any sort anyhow. Have them collect the snails in a bucket or old coffee can.

My mother’s way of handling snails was to simply pour salt over them. It leaves a rather disgusting mess, and you may prefer to be more compassionate. If you prefer you can take the snails someplace far from your garden and release them. Some preschool classes may also occasionally keep a tank of snails for educational purposes. As I noted above, kids love bugs. (more…)

Squirrels are cute, fuzzy and look so sweet… at least until they start destroying your garden.

Gardens are almost irresistible to squirrels. Gardens offer an easy food source to them, and many popular garden plants taste great to squirrels.

A fence is not sufficient to keeping squirrels out of the garden. They’re great climbers and many of them jump quite well too. Especially if you have a tree overhanging your garden, don’t assume that a fence will do much of anything to keep squirrels out.

Repelling them humanely is quite challenging. Most sprays and such aren’t all that effective. You can use products such as Ropel to discourage them from chewing on furniture and such. You can also install a motion sensitive water sprinkler such as Scarecrow to scare them away gently. (more…)