Common plant pests and ways to keep them off your plants using organic pest control methods

Common Plant Pests:

It does not matter if you are growing plants in a container or vegetables for your table, there are plant pests waiting to cause havoc.

The good news is organic pest control methods are available to gardeners. Here we'll discuss how to get rid of some common plant pests using organic pest control methods.

Theses insects can quickly strip leaves off a plants and erase months of your gardening efforts. Not good. Lets now take a look at these pests and how to keep them off your plants.

Japanese Beetles

A common plant pest many have heard of is the Japanese beetle. This beetle will strip plants leaves down to nothing then move on and destroy another plant. For many gardeners the sight of this beetle sends chills up their spine. Why?

• The Japanese beetle is known to eat almost any kind of gardening plant.

• However, one plant the beetle wants nothing to do with is Larkspur.

• By planting it near your most prized plants the beetles will stay clear of the area.

Keeping Slugs out of your garden

If you are planning to grow fruit trees or leafy plants, slugs should be considered a real threat. You can control these plant pests with natural methods.

Slugs are attracted to fermenting materials.

So, by placing half-filled beer cans around your gardening area you’ll attract, trap, and drown the critters.

Salt will dry-up and kill slugs.

Here’s how it works. A large percentage of a slug’s body is made up of water. When a slug comes in contact with salt, water from inside its body moves to the surface of its skin to balance the salt. When this occurs the slug is depleted of body water and it dies.

Here is a trick to keep slugs out of your garden. Spread sand, shells, or wood ashes around your gardening plants because slugs do not like abrasive, alkaline, or acidy materials.

Cucumber beetle

The bodies of these plant pests are yellowish-green with spots of black. The head of the insect is all black, and grows to a length of ¼ to ½ inch.

The larvae focus their attack on roots and stems of a plant during spring. They enjoy feeding on vine plants such as tomatoes, peas and beans. Corn is known to be one of their favorite foods.

To protect your vine plants provide a trellis for them to grow onto. This keeps the vines off the ground and out of the operating range of the beetle.

These are a few organic pest control methods to keep common plant pests out of your garden. With these natural pest control methods you can keep your garden pest-free. Top of common plant pests page