How to Protect Your Garden From Pests

Trying to get rid of pests can sometimes feel like an endless battle, so it’s essential to know how to protect your garden from them so you can minimize damage before they even arrive. Understanding that some pests are crucial to your garden’s ecosystem is also vital. Seeking to annihilate every creepy crawly in the garden may seem appealing, but your plants could suffer overall.

To protect your garden, first, you need to understand which pests are harmful to your plants and which are beneficial. Here, we’ve identified common garden pests to look out for, explained whether or not they are helpful, and included ideas for all-natural and cost-effective ways to keep your garden healthy.

Common Garden Pests

Slugs

Slugs can be a gardener’s worst nightmare. Not only are they disgustingly slimy, but they can do a lot of damage to garden plants, killing them or leaving them vulnerable to disease and further pest damage.

Slugs are notorious for eating holes in leaves and tender shoots, which is especially devastating for young plants. Luckily, there are a few ways to keep these pests out of your garden:

1. Create a barrier around your garden using copper tape, which slugs cannot cross over.
2. Set out beer traps
3. Use plant safe slug-pellets

With a little persistence, you can help protect your garden from slug damage and ensure your plants stay healthy.

Flies

If you garden, you may have experienced something like this: the warm sun beats down on your face as you take a leisurely stroll through your garden. The birds are singing, your flowers are blooming, and suddenly your peace is interrupted by the annoying buzz of flies swooping around your head and landing on your face.

If you’re hoping to reduce flies in your garden, try the following strategies:

1. Make sure that compost, garbage and stinky recycling are contained and away from the garden or home
2. Remove dog poop from the yard
3. Make sure there are no dead animals nearby, such as rodents or raccoons
4. Encourage the presence of spiders in your garden

Spiders

When it comes to pests, spiders are mostly harmless as long as they don’t feel like they’re about to be squished. You give them space, and not only will they give you space, but they will help reduce all kinds of nuisance pests in the garden, including flies, wasps, and gnats.

Overall, you want more spiders in your garden. They help keep other pest populations in check. If they’re congregating heavily in one specific area, aim to follow these steps:

1. Make sure exterior lights are off when not in use to avoid attracting insects, the spiders’ favorite food source
2. Reduce any leaf clutter or debris where spiders could be hiding
3. Physically knock their nests down in areas where you don’t want them (though you may start noticing more flies around if you go this route)

Wasps and bees

Stinging insects are always a concern when gardening. However, you’ll want to keep bees and wasps around to help pollinate plants. Wasps also help reduce other pests, including caterpillars and spiders. You may notice wasps and bees on your shrubs, flowers and water fixtures.

Ants

Don’t panic if you see ants around your landscaping. They’re needed in the garden, too! Just try to keep populations in check and keep the ants outside where they belong. Also, take measures in winter to reduce aphid populations so ants don’t have easy access to their favorite aphid-produced food, a sugary waste called “honeydew.”

Rodents

Rodents will often wander into the garden looking for food and water. Bird feeders, irrigation hoses, and dropped produce can draw rodents into the garden. To keep rodents away from your garden, aim to keep your growing fruits and veggies away from the soil. If you have fruit trees or vines, ensure you’re picking fruit often and picking up any pieces that might fall to the ground.

The Best Way to Protect Your Garden From Pests

For the benefit of your garden, start by developing a “pests are (mostly) friendly” attitude.

Obviously, you don’t want rodents and wildlife eating through your garden. Still, keeping pests like spiders and wasps around when possible can be valuable.

Not sure whether you should leave a pest alone or try to get rid of it? The pest experts at Thorn are here to troubleshoot your garden pest concerns and help eliminate them with low-risk methods that get results and give you peace of mind.

Let us worry about your garden’s pest control needs so you can get your hands back in the dirt. Happy gardening!