Managing Insect Pests in Vegetable Gardens

Here are tips from the ThriftyFun community for managing insect pests in your vegetable garden.

Beer, Onions And Marigolds

Try using beer in a saucer to keep slugs out of the garden and plant onion, garlic and marigolds to keep bugs out. It works for me.

By marie

Tips For Specific Pests

For ants: Sprinkle aspertame around.

For slugs: set a shallow bowl of beer out.

For aphids: Use a spray bottle of water mixed with a few drops of dishwashing soap.

For corn ears and bugs: When the silk begins to appear, put cooking oil in a squeeze bottle and put a drop on the silk. Repeat every few days.

By Mythi

Spinosad (Green Light)

I have been organically gardening for over 20 years. The best insect control having chickens, but I have found Spinosad (Green Light), it is totally organic and it only kills chewing insects. For the first time, I do not have aphids on my Brussels sprouts. Banana peelings work on roses and on other things for aphids but not the Brussels sprouts. I handpick things in the front yard and bring to the chickens.

I have no snails because I have killer snails. Since I've been using the Spinosad, I had virtually eliminated all my bug problems. It works on whitefly caterpillars, loppers, grasshoppers, you name it. You just have to be careful that if you're raising butterflies, not to spray those particular plants.

By Babette

Organic Tips

Whenever I cook with onions (long green or round), I save the root end and plant it around my garden. It comes up as long green onion. Free, and it repels bugs. You can also cut the green tops and cook with them.

Marigolds. Lavendar. Dish detergent diluted with water for aphids and other bugs you can see. Hand-pick caterpillars off leaves; you can also use the dish detergent spray for them. Pick off any leaves infected with leaf borers before they spread, and make sure you throw them away inside, away from other plants. Seal them inside a plastic bag before throwing them away.

Good luck and Delicious Gardening!

By Denise

Feel free to post your ideas below.