The Frugal Foodie: Pests, Be Gone!

Welcome to the Frugal Foodie Corner! My Frugal Foodie Friends, I will be sharing weekly tips for stretching food budgets, having fun and making do in the kitchen and garden. This column is about growing food, storing food and preparing food. All are welcome here. This column’s comments are for sharing and learning, about food only please.

Today’s topic is pest control in the garden.  Food gardens are, well…full of food that we want to eat ourselves. When looking forward to tender green beans, juicy tomatoes, and crisp tender lettuce, gardeners tend to get upset about any animal eating or killing our plants.

There are so many different pests in the garden—mice chewing plants up for nesting materials, slugs eating whole trays of starts, deer girding trees to get the velvet off their antlers, dogs digging holes, aphids sucking juices from leaves, cats using pots as litter boxes, and the eternally voracious spotted cucumber beetle.  There are many long books on how to control pests and even on controlling specific pests, so this is a hard topic for a simple column, but I will do my best.  If you are fighting pests in your garden, I hope this helps.

       There are 4 very important steps to successful pest control.

 1) Identify the problem or damage.  Is the entire plant missing or just a leaf?  If the plant looks dead, is the main stalk broken or are the roots missing?  Are there gnaw marks?

 2) Identify the pest.  This is a difficult and very important step. There are many great resources to help with this, such as UC Cooperative Extension web sites and staff. Just because an insect is there when you are there, doesn’t mean that it caused the damage you are seeing. Also, could it be a disease, nutrients burn, sun scald or over watering instead?

3) Decide your tolerance.  If only a leaf is damaged, you probably won’t turn into an Elmer Fudd caricature, but if an entire row is missing a week before harvest, you might.  And most gardeners are much more forgiving of birds and bunnies than slugs and cucumber beetles.  Caterpillars may eat vegetable leaves, but they grow up to be beautiful butterflies and moths that are essential pollinators.  And leaf cutter bees may cut big round holes out of leaves, but they use them to make little sleeping bag like nests for their babies, and are essential pollinators of blueberries, onions, carrots, alfalfa and many wild flowers.  I personally think that is worth a few holes in my leaves.

4) Decide how to control the pest.  Identifying the pest usually leads to lots of ideas on how to control it.  You have to choose the correct options for your situation and tolerance.  Controlling pests in a community garden plot can be different than controlling them in your more isolated backyard and different again than controlling them on a large farm or a garden in a wooded homestead.

Be prepared to try multiple methods until you find the one or two that work for you.  Pest control is an important part of gardening. Don’t get discouraged by even the worst pest problems, because you will succeed with some crop, your neighbors or friend with another crop and you can always share.

       There are always four basic options of how to control pests –exclusion, repellents, eliminating habitat or the lethal option. Let’s discuss each option, what it is, how it works, and some examples of each.

1)Exclusion is simply creating a mechanical barrier.  Exclusion works because animals can not eat what they can not reach with their mouths.

*If there is a fence around your garden, deer and other large pests are less likely to get in to eat your garden.  Remember to check the bottom and top of the fence for signs of entry.

*If you cover trays of seedlings, then mice can’t eat them.

*If you use row covers on garden beds, then cabbage butterflies are less likely to lay eggs on your cabbage and other vegetables.

*If there is netting or a wire cage, then birds can’t get eat many cherries or blue berries.

*If there is ¼” galvanized mesh under your raised bed, then gophers will have a very hard time getting into it.

*Using copper strips around raised beds or tops of pots is very effective at excluding snails and slugs, but also expensive.  Using pennies is cheaper.

* If you decide to do raised bed for pest exclusion, I suggest using bed retaining materials such rock, concrete blocks, wood (no plywood or pressure treated wood due to toxic chemicals) and plastic.  If you decide to use plastic, please use UV stabilized plastic which is found in plastic garden pots, children’s wading pools, fake wood decking, and garbage cans.  The non UV stabilized plastic is found in items that would normally be stored indoors, such as plastic food containers and storage bins, so these items will become brittle after a few months in the sun.

2)Repellents are using objects or substances to frighten away animals.  There are many folk remedies of repellents, and some work better than others because it is hard to guess what will frighten a hungry pest away from a gourmet buffet.

*Shiny curling ribbon or old CD’s hanging in trees or on the fence frighten many animals away.  I think the movement reminds them of a predator.

*Rotten egg spray can be very effective for excluding deer, unless there are drought conditions.

*Cayenne pepper powder sprinkled in garden beds and a few sticks in garden beds can help deter cats and other mammals. Works best with netting over the soil as well.

*Peppermint oil can deter mice and other small rodents, but you usually need to employ multiple strategies.

*Placing a large plastic owl in the garden  or scarecrow in the garden can be effective, but you need to move it or the pest will become used to them and decide that a tasty meal is worth the risk.

3) Eliminating habitat is removing food, water or shelter for the pests.  If extra sources of food or water are removed, many pests will find a new home.  If shelter is removed for pests, then their predators can find them easier and they do not have comfortable places to build a nest.

* Moving bird feeders out of the garden in the Spring or using suet blocks instead, provides less food for rats, mice and other rodents.  This also means the rodents will have less babies.

*Removing garbage piles, wood piles, and tarped dry areas from the garden area can eliminate habitat and nesting spots for rodents.  With their artificial habitat gone, they will be out where hawks, owls and snakes are more likely to find them.

*Mowing or trimming tall weeds and landscaping plants eliminates places for slugs, snails, and many other pest to stay cool during the heat of the day. Don’t remove bushes, just prune off the lowest branches that touch the ground.

*Using tight fitting concrete blocks or boards to build raised beds, eliminates nooks and crannies where pests love to hide.

4) The Lethal Option involves killing the pest.  The lethal option should always be the last resort with large pests, because another pest can just move into your garden, like a new tenant to a luxurious resort.  When using lethal methods, always consider organic and animal specific methods first.

*I do not recommend catch and release traps for most pests because many animals are territorial and when relocated they might starve to death, suffer from hypothermia, or die in battle with the animals that already live there.

* NO poison baits for rodents!  These baits may actually attract more pests to your garden.  Animals that are poisoned wander around dazed and confused as they die, attracting predators such as hawks, owls, snakes, foxes, and the neighbor’s cat.  These predators are also killed by the poison in the pest’s body.  Without the predators helping you control the pests in your garden, you will end up with more pests in a very short time. It is not worth it.

*Gopher traps should be attached to a small piece of plywood by wire and put into the hole.  Then simply place the board over the hole to darken it and check back in 24 hours.  Gophers are extremely territorial and check their entire tunnels every 24 hours. The wire stops the gopher from pushing the trap down the tunnel with the dirt.

*Beer is a great bait trap for slugs and snails.  A partially full beer bottle on Its side in the garden bed works well.  Trays or plastic lids of table salt placed in garden beds also work for slugs and snails.  Remove them before rain or watering, so you don’t get extra salt in your soil.

*Garden shops sell sticky traps for insect pests in red, yellow, and blue.  Each color attracts a different pest.  These also allow you to monitor pest populations.

*I do not recommend sticky traps for mice and other rodents, just use mouse traps since the animals will be less likely to suffer.

*Organic sprays such as soaps (Safer Soap), horticultural oils and microbial extracts can be very effective at controlling small pests such as aphids, scale insects and spider mites.

* Releasing purchased ladybugs, predator mites, lace wing insects or parasitic wasps are all organic examples of lethal options for controlling small pests.

*Encouraging natural predators in the garden can be an excellent lethal option.  Installing a perch for hawks and owls to watch for rodents, having rocks or upside down broken pots for toads and lizards to live under, or having native bushes or trees to feed and provide nest sites for local birds are all examples of inexpensive ways to encourage the natural predators to do your pest control for you.  And they work all day or night, every day for you.

I know that there are so many more pests than I could possibly cover in this column, but I hope these tips help with your pest control problems, my Frugal Foodie Friends!  Please share in the comments if my tips helped you or add any tips that you have.

Until next week, enjoy some good food and garden dreams.

Earlier Columns:

• The Frugal Foodie: How to Keep Produce Fresh and Tasty
• The Frugal Foodie Has Tasty Tips for Easter
• The Frugal Foodie: Tips for Growing From Seed