Do you have a garden? If so, do you have any pests? My guess is that you do have pests, regardless of where your garden is located. A pot of herbs on a windowsill may have pests like insects or mice. A container garden on the deck or patio may have pests like insects, birds, squirrels, dogs, cats, or rats. A raised bed garden, greenhouse or in ground garden may have all of the pests mentioned above, plus any animal that lives in the woods and fields surrounding the garden. There are a few things that work with no harm to anything but these small pests, which is what is preferred because we must always treat the earth and all that dwell thereon with respect. We can start with the smallest pests like insects and bugs and examine the available controls to see if they work.
1. Insects and bugs love the small tender green spring plants. My mother, who was a lifetime gardener, always sprinkled hardwood ashes on tender plants like lettuce or other greens, beans, squash or anything else that is planted early in the season. I don’t remember her ever using anything else as a “bug dust.” I usually use a dust that is harmless to dogs and other similar animals, as well as being safe for vegetables that are to be harvested and eaten. Depending on the weather, plants may need to be dusted every time the rain washes off the dust. The early season insects and bugs disappear with the early season and other insects and bugs take their place. We are talking about potato bugs, tomato horn worms, white cabbage moths, squash borers and all of their friends and relatives. I just continue with the same dust treatment throughout the changing seasons.
2. The next group of pests consists of the small animals and birds, moles, field mice, rabbits, skunks, squirrels, raccoons and ‘possums. My primary problem pests are crows, squirrels, and rabbits. Crows eat new corn, ripe strawberries and blueberries and sometimes new bean plants if they are early beans. The berries are easily protected with netting, which keeps away the crows as well as deer. Rabbits and squirrels eat anything that is tender and green, including onions and tender ears of corn. The only way to keep them out of the garden is to fence with chicken wire. About two feet high is enough to keep out rabbits, but squirrels will climb a fence if they are hungry. The squirrels we have are all so fat they are too lazy to climb a fence unless there is fresh tender corn to steal. I plan to try tying a piece of metal window screen around each cornstalk this year. Hope that will be too much work for the squirrels to deal with. I lay a piece of chicken wire down on my rows of corn as soon as it is planted. The wire keeps the crows from eating the corn sprouts. The “crows eating corn” problem has been solved for me for years.