Top 5 Organic Pest Control Methods For Your Vegetable Garden

A great place to start one’s homestead is to start an organic vegetable garden, and one of the most defeating feelings for organic gardeners is finding pest damage.  It’s too easy to run to the toxic chemicals and wipe out whatever little creatures are eating our plants.  Whether you choose to plant herb gardens, a raised bed, or a container garden, we have the top 5 natural, organic methods of pest management for the best results to use in your home gardens.

• Identify garden pests.
• Understand how each organic pest control method works.
• Choose the appropriate natural pest control ingredient.
• Watch your garden thrive.

Identify the Pests

Begin by learning to identify what’s eating your plants so that you can use the right product.  Most pests fall into three categories in the garden: hard-bodied insects like beetles and squash bugs, soft-bodied worms like hornworms and caterpillars, and tiny bodies like thrips or gnats.  Those tiny bodies might be hard or soft, and several measures may be employed to get each of these under control.

 If I can’t always see exactly what creature is eating my crop, I look for surrounding clues by asking questions.  What plants are they eating?  What does the damage look like? Are there any signs of eggs or larva or excrement? Make sure that you search the entire plant for signs to point you in the right direction. Answering these questions gives us a starting place to research and will help us to understand exactly what is happening in the garden. Different kinds of bugs require different methods for non-toxic pest control.  If you’re brand new to gardening and making a guess as to what pest you’re fighting, that’s okay too.  Don’t worry about it, you’ll learn something along the way here, and gaining experience is sometimes the best way to learn.

So you’ve identified your pests, now what? Here are our top 5 natural pest control methods for the home garden.

1. Mechanically Remove or Create a Barrier

The first step, start with anything that you can do that doesn’t involve a spray or powder to be directly applied to your plants. Hand-picking hornworms is the most effective way to rid your garden of the tomato-eating pests.  Using the sticky side of duct tape to remove squash bugs and their eggs can really knock back their population. Sometimes, a simple blast of water can kill enough aphids off of a crop to give the plants a chance to gain some strength and deter the tiny insects. 

Row cover is my favorite way to protect my plants in the brassica family, like broccoli and cabbage.  By creating a barrier between my plants and the pests, I don’t have to use any synthetic pesticides on my food. Last, consider companion planting to attract beneficial insects like parasitic wasps and assassin bugs that will prey on those pests that are eating our vegetables. These are a few helpful pest prevention tips so we can fight against pests before we consider applying anything to our food plants.

2. Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT)

Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT) is my favorite option for soft-bodied pests, including larva, worms, and caterpillars.  BT is a naturally occurring bacteria found in the soil. Once ingested, BT proteins break down the larva’s gut lining due to the extremely high pH.  This doesn’t bother human stomachs, as we have a significantly lower pH, having higher acid content. You can purchase BT at most hardware stores, dilute a small amount with water, and spray it over your plants.  The best part is that our beneficial pollinators are not affected by BT.

3. Spinosad

Spinosad is another great natural bacterium used against pests; however, this one works well for insects, as it attacks their nervous systems. I like to use spinosad to fight against beetle, squash bug, and stink bug infestation. It also works well for those tiny-bodied flies and aphids. You can find Spinosad in powder form, which is easily dusted directly onto plants, or liquid form, which is diluted with water and sprayed onto them.

4. Diatomaceous Earth (DE)

Diatomaceous Earth (DE) has long been touted as the all-around homestead cure-all.  It’s crushed up fossils of diatoms creating a fine powder, which gets under the exoskeletons of the insects, separating their outer shells.  This is purely a mechanical process, so no chemical reactions happening here, and the best part is that DE is mostly harmless to animals.  The exception is that you don’t want to breathe in the fine dust of DE, as it’ll irritate your lungs. Diatomaceous Earth easily rinses off and becomes ineffective with water, so it must be reapplied after watering or rain.

5. Neem Oil

Neem Oil is made from the seeds of the neem tree and is a natural pest deterrent.  The main ingredient is azadirachtin, which disrupts the metamorphic process of pests from larva to adult.  It also fights against certain diseases in the garden making this application work doubly well. Again, like Spinosad and BT, neem horticultural oil has to be ingested by the pest to be effective.  Be careful when spraying any kind of oil on your plants though. If you spray your garden plants with any kind of oil during the day, you’re likely to lose them to sunburn.  Instead, spray in the evening, and then rinse off in the morning.

Bonus: Homemade Pest Remedies

Depending on which plants you need to treat, and which pests you’re fighting, there are many other natural pest control ingredients you can use in your backyard garden. Mineral oil, peppermint and geranium essential oils, insecticidal soap, and peroxide are just a few. My favorite organic pest control recipe is a splash each of spinosad and BT, a few drops of dish soap, a splash of neem oil, and sometimes I’ll add a liquid fertilizer since I’m spraying the foliage. It won’t hurt to mix them and spray once. This eco-friendly garden recipe works well when I’m dealing with worms, insects, disease, or the unknown.

Other Helpful Tips

• Get your self a pump sprayer.  I like a one gallon sprayer for my large garden.

• Use a duster for the fine dusting of Spinosad or DE.

• Protect yourself from breathing in dusts.

• Spray plant leaves with a natural product in the evening to avoid disrupting pollinators or other beneficial insects.

• It’s a good idea to apply pesticides in a small area as a test before spraying your entire crop to protect your hard work.

• Companion plant to attract beneficial insects or other natural predators.

• Organic farmers practice proper crop rotation. By changing what you plant in each bed, you’ll break the life cycle of dormant pests. As they emerge next year, their favorite plant won’t be there to eat.

• Remember that building healthy soil is the best option for your young plants. Pests are going to attack stressed plants first by detecting their stress hormones.  Plants growing in healthy garden soil with a strong root system will have a better chance at beating bug damage the natural way.

By using natural methods, you can continuously harvest fresh produce from your own organic garden without pesticide residues. While most of these products are widely advertised in early spring in most garden centers, you can usually find them clearance-priced at the end of the growing season.

Happy Growing!