Natural Pest Deterrents for Your Garden
By Meredith Sorensen
ing straight towards my flesh! If you like to avoid chemicals and toxic sprays, here are a few strategies to naturally deter a range of bugs and furry friends from walking, flying, and nibbling their way through your landscape.
B Support Your Soil and Plants
Healthy plants resist pests, and healthy soil yields healthy plants. So first off, support your soil and space with the following techniques.
• Apply Compost: Apply a two-inch layer of compost and incorporate it into the top six inches of your garden beds. The organic matter will improve the physical, chemical, and biological strength of your soil.
• Apply Mulch: Add a two-inch layer of mulch to your garden beds. It will reduce weeds and keep a cleaner zone around plants.
• Choose wisely: Choose appropriate, resistant varieties. Keep them happy with yearly applications of mulch and well- rotted manure.
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ehind the scenes even zen-like, productive gardens can feel like a battle zone. Slugs are invading from the south! Deer are munching on the north perimeter! Mosquitoes are buzz-
Make Your Space Uninviting to Critters And Pests
• Clear vegetation: My partner, a builder, insists that we clear a one-foot perimeter around our house and keep it free from vegetation with a layer of mulch. At first I thought that aesthetic was a bit austere. But now I’ve grown fond of being able to see that space; it removes hiding spaces for opportu- nistic critters and protects our foundation from over-zealous root systems.
• Plant herbs: Lemon balm, marjoram, oregano, dandelion, chamomile, stinging nettle, and valerian are perennials that improve the general health of their surroundings.
• Attract pollinators and insect predators: Grow nectar-rich flowers such as clovers, mints, asters, and coneflowers to at- tract both insect pollinators and beneficial insect predators.
• Prune: Pruning, as well as thinning of the fruit, will help keep pests and diseases at bay.
• Remove and squash: Gather up fallen leaves from trees with scab diseases. Break apart the tent caterpillar nests in the crotches of cherry trees and stomp on the larvae.
Slugs and Snails Slugs, the stealthy, slimy predators of the evening, will feast on young plants if not deterred.
• Roll out some copper tape: Try lining your raised beds with some copper tape; they don’t like to crawl over it. Clear any grasses or stems going over the tape that could serve as a bridge.
• Belly up with slug beer traps: Pour a small amount of beer into a wide jar buried in the soil. I’ve also had success with empty tuna fish cans. The slugs will belly up to the watering hole and die instead of munching on plants.
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• Get ducks: The soft-footed feet of ducks are much easier on the yard than chickens, and they’ll spend a lot of time pursu- ing slugs. (Note: Keep ducks out of the veggie garden until the plants have reached maturity. After the plants are big and strong you can give the ducks free reign.)
• Water in the morning: Slugs are more active at night and prefer damp conditions to move around a space. So try wa- tering in the morning instead of the evening so the surface of the soil dries out and isn’t as inviting to slugs.
• Try diatomaceous earth: This feels like crunchy dust to a human’s hands, but its tiny jagged edges (skeletal remains
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