If we could garden without having to worry about pests that attack plants, gardening would be a breeze. But we must always keep an eye out for these little foes, who are small in size but wreak havoc.
Pests can be kept away by strict garden cleanliness, just as healthy conditions can often prevent human illness. Waste piles serve as breeding grounds for insects. I don't believe a compost pile will cause any harm, but unkempt, neglected areas seem to invite trouble.
Certain things can help keep pests at bay. Earthworms' constant stirring up of the soil helps to keep the soil open to air and water. Many of our common birds are insect eaters. Birds that help in this way include sparrows, robins, chickadees, meadow larks, and orioles. Some insects feed on other, more dangerous insects. Some ladybugs perform this good deed. The ichneumon-fly is also useful. And toads are amazing in terms of the number of insects they can consume in a single meal. Everyone should treat the toad with respect.
Every gardener should strive to make his or her garden appealing to birds and toads. Birds will stay in your garden if you have a good birdhouse, grain scattered around in early spring, and a water source. If you want toads, make provisions for them as well. A toad prefers to rest in the shade on a hot summer day. By night, he is ready to go, but not to kill, because toads prefer live food. How does one "prepare" for toads? One thing to do is to prepare a quiet, dark, and damp retreat. To a toad, a few stones of varying sizes beneath the shade of a shrub, perhaps with a carpeting of damp leaves, would be ideal.
Insects are classified into two groups based on how they perform their tasks. One species gnaws at the plant, absorbing pieces of it into its system. This type of insect has a mouth designed for this purpose. Grasshoppers and caterpillars are examples of this type. The other type consumes plant juices. In some ways, this is the worst kind. Plant lice, as well as mosquitoes that prey on us, have a place here. All scale insects attach themselves to plants and suck the life out of them.
Can we now fight these guys? The gnawing creatures may be caught with poison sprayed on plants, which they consume along with the plant. The Bordeaux mixture is a poison that is sprayed on plants for this purpose.
In the other case, the only option is to directly attack the insect. As a result, certain insecticides are sprayed on the plant to kill the insect. They do a lethal job of attacking the insect's body in various ways.
We are occasionally plagued by underground insects at work. You've seen an ant hill-covered garden. Here is a solution, but proceed with caution.
'How can I tell which insect is doing the destructive work?' is a frequently asked question. You can tell partly by the work done and partly by looking at the insect. This latter task is not always easy to complete. I had cutworms once but never saw one. I only saw the completed work. If tender plant stalks are cut cleanly off, the cutworm is almost certainly present. How does he appear? That is a difficult question to answer because his family is large. If you see a grayish striped caterpillar, it is likely to be a cutworm. However, due to its habit of resting in the ground during the day and working at night, it is difficult to see one. The cutworm appears early in the season, ready to cut the hyacinth flower stalks. He'll be ready for the peas when they appear later. Putting paper or tin collars around the plants is an excellent way to keep him out. These collars should be spaced about an inch apart from the plant.
Plant lice, on the other hand, are more common. Those we see are frequently green in color. They can, however, be red, yellow, or brown. Lice are easy to spot because they are always clinging to their host. As sucking insects, they must cling to a plant for food, and they will almost certainly be discovered. However, the biting insects do their job and then flee. As a result, they are much more difficult to deal with.
Rose slugs cause significant damage to rose bushes. They consume the body of the leaves, leaving only the veining. They have a soft body and are green on top and yellow on the bottom.
The striped beetle eats the leaves of young melons and squash. It consumes the leaf by boring holes in it. This beetle is striped, as the name implies. The back is black with yellow stripes that run the length of the garment.
Slugs, another garden pest, are another issue. Slugs will eat almost any garden plant, whether it's a flower or a vegetable. They lay a lot of eggs in old garbage dumps. Do you see the benefit of cleaning up trash? Slugs cause more damage in the garden than almost any other insect pest. You can find them by doing the following. There is a method for bringing them to the ground during the day. They rest below ground during the day. So simply water the soil where the slugs are expected to be. How are you going to find out where they are? They will almost certainly hide near the plants they are feeding on. So sprinkle some clean lime water on the ground. This will irritate them, and they will rise to investigate.
Aside from the most common pests, which attack many different types of plants, there are pests that are specific to certain plants. Isn't it discouraging? Beans, like potatoes and cabbages, have their own pests. In fact, the vegetable garden is teeming with life. Lice are very bothersome in the flower garden, as are cutworms and slugs, and ants can become very numerous as the season progresses. But the vegetable garden takes the prize for truly discouraging insect problems. If we were to go into fruit to any extent, the vegetable garden might have to give way to the fruit garden.
The tomato worm is a common pest in the vegetable garden. This is a large striped worm that is yellowish or greenish in color. Its job is to consume the young fruit.
Celery is home to a large, light green caterpillar. The black bands on each ring or segment of its body can identify this caterpillar.
The squash bug can be identified by its brown body, which is long and slender, and by the unpleasant odor it emits when killed. Another bug to keep an eye out for is the potato bug. It's a crusty beetle with yellow and black stripes down its back. The tiny green cabbage worm is a real annoyance. It is a small caterpillar, about the size of a tomato worm. By name, these are probably the most common garden pests.
