Owning a garden and keeping it clean and healthy isn’t as easy as everyone thinks. You need to dedicate a lot of time and effort for it to grow into something you’ve imagined and dreamed of. It’s not as simple as purchasing some plant seeds and planting them in your garden. And even if you manage to grow your plants properly, you could still encounter pests and vermin.
Some animals love chomping on plants. This is a significant problem for many gardeners (whether they’re cultivating a garden because of a hobby or for work). There are a lot of things you need to look at and take care of, which is why we’ve decided to offer you all the help you can get! Here are ten ways to keep pests out of your garden and keep your plants nice and healthy.
Table of contents
Top 10 Ways to Keep Pests Out of Your Garden
1. Use Aromatic Pest Confusers and Deterrents
We don’t condone the use of poison as they aren’t just harmful to animals; they’re harmful to humans as well. Even though they are pests, they are still living beings, and if there are methods of keeping them away that doesn’t involve unnecessarily causing too much pain and suffering for the animal – we’ll recommend them.
That’s why you should opt for aromatic pest deterrents and confusers. They work on the principle that most pests rely on scent to make their way. Therefore, scents that aren’t pleasant to the vermin will cause them to flee and leave your garden alone.
2. Use Trap Plants
The use of trap plants has just recently become popular as it’s a cheap way of keeping beetles and other smaller pests away from your garden. Figure out which plants are attractive to which pests, and then place some bait near the plants. As soon as the vermin flock to the plant you’ll be able to vacuum them off or remove them using other means. Even you can use it for lawn pest control.
3. Keep your Plants Healthy
An unhealthy plant will decay. The decaying plant will attract plenty of pests that you won’t necessarily be able to get rid of. That’s why keeping your plants healthy (alongside the aesthetic part) is crucial to their survival (and your happiness about gardening).
As long as they are healthy, the pests will be at a minimum (but you still might end up needing to fight them).
4. Use Mulch
Did you know that some insects function as allies to you and your garden? Ground beetles are a prime example of this. By using mulch, you’re providing habitat for them, as well as slowing down water evaporation. Additionally, it protects micro-organisms from the sun. Use mulch at all times!
5. Build Healthy Soil
As soon as you start creating a garden and taking care of it, make sure that the soil is healthy and capable of providing everything that a plant needs to survive. If it’s not healthy enough, you’ll have to do some ‘maintenance’ to deal with any potential issues. Healthy soil is necessary for both the well-being of the plants and their protection from vermin.
6. Increase Soil Organic Matter
Plants wouldn’t be able to survive and thrive without organic matter, so make sure you use compost, mulch, and everything you can find. This will enable the micro-organisms living in the soil to build it correctly and feed the plants. The best thing about using so much organic matter in the soil? Its capacity to hold water will increase, thus ‘feeding’ your plants for extended periods of time.
7. Don’t Crowd Plants
Plants need space, similarly to humans. They have roots which need to grow and improve over time, but this is impossible without proper amounts of space. Keep them relatively far apart, but not too far. Your best bet is to check some online guides on plant keeping and growing – they’ll provide you with all the info there is about plant crowding and how to avoid it.
8. Clean Up in the Fall
Plants usually develop diseases in the Fall. This means that some of your plants could die, but you’ll mostly be facing some diseased leaves. It’s your job to get rid of anything that looks like it’s sick because you want to prevent the sickness from spreading to other plants in the vicinity of the diseased plant. This will drastically reduce the possibility of spreading the disease further.
9. Plant Disease-Resistant Varieties
Some completely natural plants are vulnerable to a plethora of plant-related diseases. If you want a healthy garden, you’ll need to find disease-resistant varieties of the same plants. This is often called GMO but, in reality, it’s just a way to strengthen the collective through the use of multiple disease-resistant individuals.
10. Apply the Correct Fertilizer
Every plant is different when it comes to what it requires to grow correctly. People often make the mistake of thinking that each plant is the same and that every fertilizer is good. This isn’t true, and you’ll most likely destroy half of your garden by using improper fertilizer. Do your research!
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