Clutter provides hiding places for pests and makes spraying more difficult. Thoroughly wash tools after use in garden beds or crop areas.
Consider natural controls – for example, ladybugs eat aphids and can help you control them. Also, avoid contaminating nearby plants and animals with chemical pesticides by carefully selecting only those that target the particular pest you are treating and following label directions. Call Springfield MO Pest Control experts today!
Keep Your Home Clean
From minuscule fleas to rodents that will leap out of your dinner plate, pest infestations are not only unhealthy but can also damage the structural integrity of your home. Fortunately, there are many ways to prevent unwanted visitors from entering your home.
Keeping your home clean is one of the best and most obvious ways to prevent pests. Clearing away leftovers, food scraps, and crumbs from counters, floors, and fruit baskets will help limit pests’ access to a cozy indoor habitat. Also, regularly sweeping and vacuuming your home will remove dirt, dust, and other debris that can lead to pest infestations.
It’s important to seal any cracks around your doors, windows, and foundation as pests can enter through these tiny openings. Weather stripping and caulking can be effective for small gaps and cracks. Additionally, removing tree branches that hang over the roof or eaves can prevent rodents from reaching them and climbing into your house.
Maintaining your garden is another great way to protect against pests. Using mulch to protect tree trunks and reduce water evaporation, keeping the area weed-free free, and applying compost will all help keep the soil healthy and nutrient-rich and deter pests. Similarly, turning off the garden hoses during rainstorms will prevent standing water from drawing pests to your yard and home.
Lastly, attracting beneficial insects such as ladybugs, bees and wasps to your garden can help keep insect populations balanced and reduce the need for chemical controls. Also, growing flowers that attract insect-chomping birds can be an effective way to eliminate pests in your garden without the use of chemicals. When you do need to use pesticides in the garden, opt for organic options such as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), pyrethrums, clove oil and horticultural grade vinegar, and diatomaceous earth. Also, be sure to always follow the product instructions carefully. These natural solutions are often just as effective as conventional pesticides. If you aren’t interested in using these natural methods, there are still organic pesticides available, however, they may not be as effective as the more traditional products.
Get Rid Of Weeds
If you want your garden to produce healthy, abundant crops, you need to remove any weeds that are taking up valuable space. This typically involves hand pulling or hoeing, but you can also use a herbicide that is non-toxic to pets and children. The key is to catch weeds before they set out seeds. Weeds that are allowed to grow and mature often have the potential to overtake crops and crowd out other plants, reducing their vitality.
Pests are insects or mites that damage a plant and can cause crop failure or reduce the vigor of the plant. While a small population of most pests is tolerable, large populations need to be controlled. Some common garden pests include corn earworms, tomato fruitworms, and squash bugs.
To control these and other garden pests, focus on growing healthy plants with adequate fertilization and watering. Keep the area free of weeds that can compete with your plants for nutrients and sunlight; avoid injury to tree trunks with mowers or weed whackers; lay down mulch at tree bases; and hand dig or hoe bare areas regularly.
Consider using biological controls, which introduce predators or parasitic insects into the garden to eat pests or inhibit their development. These organisms can be obtained from natural populations in the environment or purchased for release into the garden. Examples of beneficial insects include ladybugs, lacewings, and parasitic wasps, which eat aphids; frogs, toads, and birds that eat caterpillars; and bacteria or fungi that target specific pests.
Other methods to control pests and weeds include planting a few flowers that attract beneficial insects (such as sweet alyssum, yarrow, and marigolds) to the garden; filling empty tuna cans with beer, and placing them in the garden to lure slugs for easy picking; and scattering sharp sand, wood ashes or diatomaceous earth around a plant to deter slugs and snails. A good practice is to check the garden for insects and weeds daily so that they can be detected early in the day before they become damaging. This allows you to take preventative action, such as spraying with dormant oil or spraying with neem or lightweight horticultural oil, before they multiply.
Rotate Your Crops
Keeping crops in the same spot year after year leads to the buildup of soil-borne pests and disease microorganisms. Crop rotation reduces these problems by preventing the same crop from being planted in the same area of your garden for three to four years. Instead, you plant a different vegetable or vegetable family in that same section of the garden each year. This confuses pests and prevents them from establishing a foothold in your garden.
The best way to use crop rotation is by planting crops that are resistant to the pests you’re trying to control. This will help to keep them at bay without resorting to chemical controls. However, the effectiveness of this tactic depends on the insect’s life cycle. For it to be effective, the insect must spend the majority of its time in a low mobility stage and have a restricted range of host plants. This is not the case with many insect pests, so crop rotation is less effective on these types of insects.
It’s also important to consider the botanical families of your vegetables when using crop rotation. For example, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants all belong to the nightshade family. They have a lot in common, including their susceptibility to the same biotic pests and diseases, as well as the fact that they require similar nutrients from the soil. Rotating crops within the nightshade family is a great way to minimize pest problems in your garden.
Lastly, try to time your crop rotation around the peak activity of the pest you’re trying to avoid. For example, flea beetles are most active in midsummer, so growing brassicas like kale and collard greens in the fall will give them a chance to grow before the beetles arrive.
In addition to crop rotation, other preventative measures include keeping weeds pulled and cultivated, avoiding putting out food for rodents (like compost), and ensuring that your irrigation system doesn’t create standing water where mosquitoes can breed. The best approach to pest prevention, however, is to focus on the basics: selecting the right crops for your region and the conditions you’re gardening in, and adopting sound cultural practices that promote a healthy crop.
Identify Pest Problems
Whether they’re insects, weeds, rodents, or something else, pests can cause damage to our property and threaten our health. They carry disease-causing germs on their fur, bodies, or feet and spread them through contact with contaminated food, water, or soil. Mosquitoes and flies spread mosquito-borne diseases, while roaches and ants carry and spread contaminating bacteria.
Proper identification of a pest is the first step in developing a healthy solution to a pest problem. Understanding the pest’s life cycle, habits, and threats allows us to identify control methods that minimize harm to beneficial organisms or people.
Pests are driven by the need for food, water, and shelter. It’s not uncommon to find pests in homes that are kept impeccably clean. Leftover crumbs or rotting fruit in the kitchen, poorly stored pantry items or untreated wood are often the lure that draws bugs into the home. Stacks of newspapers, magazines, or cardboard provide ideal hiding places for pests and are easy to establish nests in. A lack of maintenance can also attract pests, as dripping faucets and leaking pipes allow them to enter from outside.
Once pests are identified, the goal is to deny them access to the resources they need to survive. In the house, this means caulking cracks and crevices, sealing openings around pipes, and making sure that vents are open. In the garden, this includes removing weeds and closing off areas of standing water or low-lying soil where pests may breed.
Outdoors, this involves physically excluding pests by using screens and screens for doors and windows, keeping bushes and tall plants trimmed away from buildings, and closing off entrance points such as vents or gaps in siding. It’s also important to note that most pests are cyclical and return periodically, so it’s essential to follow preventive tactics in addition to short-term solutions such as chemical controls.
Biological control involves using natural enemies to suppress or eradicate pests, such as predators that feed on the pests or pathogens that weaken or kill them. In a garden, this might mean placing bird feeders in the yard to reduce the number of mosquitoes that pester vegetable gardens or planting garlic and rosemary in areas where weeds tend to overtake the garden.
