Managing Pest in Your Garden: Part I
/One of the most common questions we are asked at GFE is how to take care of unwanted pests in your garden. Gardening is not always easy and pests remain one of the more challenging parts of keeping a thriving garden.
We generally follow a pest management strategy called IPM (Integrated Pest Management) and it is an easy step by step process that will help you determine what is in your garden, if you need to do anything about it, and if so, what.
Today, we’re going to talk about all the steps you take before actually taking any action against your pests. Next week, we’ll talk about the 4 ways that you can safely get rid of pests in your garden.
Step 1: Healthy gardens have less problems
This may seem a little obvious at the outset but it is so important! Keeping your plants healthy, just like keeping ourselves healthy, means they are less susceptible to pests and plant diseases. The first, easiest, and most important way to keep healthy plants is the GFE motto: Right Plant. Right Place. If you plant something in a location where it has all the correct conditions to thrive, it is much less likely to get sick. For example: place a sun loving plant in the shade and it will never have what it needs to grow big and strong and healthy.
Keep your plants healthy with compost! Most (but not all!)* plants love a healthy balanced soil amendment like compost. Plants with access to plenty of healthy food (aka rich soil) will grow big and strong meaning they will be more able to stand up to pests. For example: amend your veggie beds with plenty of rich compost!
Maximize diversity and cultivate a balanced ecosystem in your garden. Grow a mix of small, medium and large shrubs to encourage lots of birds and other wildlife in your garden. Plant blooming flowers to attract pollinators and other insects. Diversify your crops and rotate them through your garden to keep your soil healthy and reduce the likelihood that you will have a pest explosion. We find large pest outbreaks when there are not enough predators for that pest. By diversifying your garden you are allowing nature to keep a balanced ecosystem.
*The concept of right plant, right place always applies! Some plants, like leucadenron for example, love poor, dry soil - its the right plant for that place!
Step 2: Observe
A gardener’s best tool is the power of observation. Pay attention to what is happening in your garden and you will start to notice problems before they become catastrophes. After a hot day you may notice a plant looking a little wilted and may want to give it some extra water. You may notice that the bark is rubbed off a bit on your lemon tree, or that your beloved lavatera maritima is getting some rust on its leaves. Thoughtful observation is the best way to learn what is happening in your garden.
Step 3: Properly ID your pest
After thoughtful observation of your garden, you may notice that you have a pest. A new plant that may be a weed, or something munching the leaves of your chard plant. This step is crucial: you must properly ID what pest you have. Without proper identification, you are unable to know how to take care of your pest. Are the small grasses popping up in your yard ehrharta or bermuda grass? If it impossible to know how to remedy the situation without first knowing what it is. For example: ehrharta reproduces by seed heads that spread in your garden through the wind. Bermuda grass has underground runners that, when broken, just pop up new invasive grasses. Weed out a bermuda grass like you would ehrharta actually makes the problem worse!
The best way to identify your pest is to notice what plant it is bothering. Many pests are very plant specific. Things in the chard family are plagued by leaf miner, but that same pest leaves kale completely alone. Google the plant that is being targeted and any identifying characteristics of the pest. If it is a caterpillar, what color is the body? Are there stripes? Once you know what you are dealing with, you can move on to step 4.
Step 4: Can I live with the damage?
As organic gardeners, this is a vital questions we have to ask ourselves. We know that we are sharing our garden with all kinds of other living things, from the fungus below our feet to the hawks, bees, aphids, hover flies, neighborhood raccoons and everything else that lives amongst us. You may be tempted to knock down a spider web off a shrub, but that same spider web may trap unwanted pests or be used by a hummingbird to build a nest for their babies. We want a whole host of living things in our garden to make our cities and our spaces healthier. Part of this agreement is we may have to put up with some pest damage.
But, by properly identifying your pest you can answer the above question - can I live with the damage. Invasive weeds that could jeopardize native plants or rats that eat every veggie start in your garden? Even organic gardeners realize there is a limit to what we are willing to tolerate.
Once you have properly ID’d your pest and determined that you cannot live with the damage and would like to take action - what do you do?
