A few weeks back I started my vegetable garden. I am growing a variety of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and squash. Things started good, but I’m having pest problems. Bugs began appearing on my plants. Leaves were getting holes and turning yellow or shriveling up. In addition, when flowers opened up on my zucchini plants, something came along and ate them all overnight. I live in Long Island, NY in a residential area. It is common for us to have rabbits, birds, and squirrels.
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I wanted to take a moment and describe my garden pest problems, tell you about the solutions I tried, and to ask for some suggestions. First, I’d like to show you some pictures I took today of my problem plants. I apologize for the blurry pictures, I need a new digital camera badly!
You can scroll through the photos by using the arrows below each picture.
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My garden problems:
- Something is eating the leaves on my pepper plants.
- I have aphids all over my plants.
- Slugs are going after my zucchini and squash plants. By the morning I find my buds on the ground. Slug trails all over the leaves.
Here are some of the remedies I tried:
- Lady Bugs – They say lady bugs are the gardens best friend. They hang out and eat most of the bugs you don’t want like aphids. I purchased a bunch of live lady bugs and released them at night as directed. They stuck around for awhile, but after a few days they were all gone.
- Fence – I put a wire fence around the garden to keep out rabbits and especially my dog!
- Marigolds – They say Marigolds are good for keeping some bugs away. I planted a ring of them around my garden but did not notice much difference.
- Beer – Yes, beer, if you leave a shallow container of beer near your garden it will attract and kill the slugs, but you must change the dish daily.
- Constant Attention – Whenever possible, I try to observe my plants and hand pick any pests off. At night I’ll go out with a flashlight and flick off any slugs I see on my plants.
What experiences have you had with your garden ?
I share your sorrows friend. I'm having the same issues, yet I refuse to resort to chemicals. My pests are aphids and slugs. I too, tried the beer trick, without success. I wish you luck, perhaps you'll still have a good harvest despite the bugs!
You will have to just keep working hard and i am sure that many people will agree. You just need to keep your patience and do it well.
Hi…Here in Texas we have a Dirt Doctor. He is the organic guru of guru's. Here is his website: http://www.dirtdoctor.com/ I have used a variety of his methods and organic recipes for bug control in my garden….and they WORK!!! Here is a partial solution of his way to get rid of the slugs in your garden:
Diatomaceous earth (D.E.) has been widely used for organic slug control, and can be effective. Some disadvantages are that you have to reapply it after rain and many times slugs can actually move directly through the product uninjured. And even so, the results are spotty. The heavy mucus they produce sometimes protects them from the D.E. A better option is a mixture of D.E., hot pepper, and cedar flakes.
Good Luck!
My grandmother has been gardening my whole life, and some of these problems are similar to her problems…
For the small animals, keep all your eggshells (gramma kept them in a container in the microwave till she was ready), when you have a dozen or so empty eggshells, crush them until they are small pieces and then spread them around your garden. They will eventually biodegrade, but it will keep cats, bunnies and other small animals from going into your garden. They hate having the eggshells stuck in their paws and such.
As for slugs and such, the beer works, but my gramma always used equal parts vegetable oil (cheapest oil you can get) and dishsoap. The dishsoap kills the bugs, the oil makes it so that the bugs can't climb back out of the container once they fall in.
When you're going slug hunting at night with your flashlight, don't flick them onto the ground, flick them into a container of the oil/dishsoap solution.
As texas said up there, cedar flakes are also useful. Bugs generally don't like the smell of cedar. My gramma always kept a cedar bush or two near her garden, that helped.
Regardless of everything you do, however, bugs will still get in your garden. That's just life, and hey, there's not much you can do about it!
Good luck!
Working is garden is quite good and it relaxes a person very much. Making a garden green needs a lot of hard work and you need give your time in maintaining it on regular basis. Working on regular intervals, providing proper supply of water and many things can be achieved by doing all this.
Thanks for sharing! I can use all the help I can get with my garden.
Wow! Chef Tom you sure did get some good advice here. I know from personal experience, here on Long Island, the Garlic Spray works as does all of what Blend added. Have you ever considered Companion Planting? It too works!!! Good Luck. I can't wait to have my new garden in PA this time next year!!! (I'm moving)