How can I get rid of those invaders? It is a question that you may asked several times to get only one answer which is “pesticides”.
Although pests are very small in their sizes, they can do more than they look. They are not only pests, they are like invaders who attack a place to leave it totally destroyed. Some of these pests are clear and can be seen to be killed easily, while the others are invisible which make it difficult to deal with them. Pests exist everywhere whether it is inside our homes or outsides them in the gardens and fields. The problem is that we resort to using chemical pesticides in order to get rid of such creatures. These pesticides do not only affect pests to leave them killed, but they also affect the environment and our health whether it is through water, air or through the plants that we eat. They are poisonous substances that cause many diseases and may lead to death.
There are many ways that allow you to dismiss these creatures out of your life. They are natural and do not affect our health and environment like the chemical pesticides. You need first to know what attracts those pests or invaders to your garden and after that, you will have to get rid of it.
– Get rid of weeds: Clean your garden and remove all the weeds continuously in order not to provide pests with the best environment for hiding and laying eggs.
– Remove the infected plants: Get rid of the plants that are already infected or can be easily attacked by pests, because of being weak. Do not leave these plants in your garden after pulling them out and keep them away in order not to attract pests.
– Grow different types of plants: Try to divide your garden into more than one area to grow different types of plants and change these types each season through replacing each other, because this will help you to get rid of the pests and prevent them from stabilizing in the soil. This method is commonly used for growing organic food and it helps the soil to be healthier. The method is known as crop rotation and it is an old method that was proved to be effective and helps to reduce using pesticides.
– Strengthen your plants: Make the plants in your garden strong and provide them with the needed nutrition by using natural fertilizers or seaweed and try to avoid the other artificial ones. Strengthening the plants through natural fertilizers will not only help them to overcome the pests attack and different diseases, but it will also help you to get healthy plants that are safe for being eaten.
– Clean tools: Keep your garden tools always clean whether it is before or after using them. Make sure that they are clean after being used with the infected plants, because they may carry something that leads to transmitting the infection to the healthy plants.
– Water early: Avoid getting the leaves wet when you water your plants. If it is necessary for you to get the leaves wet, then you must water the plants in the early morning to leave the plants dry as long as possible throughout the day. Wet leaves attract the pests and increase the risk of being infected by different diseases.
– Helpful insects: Not all the insects are harmful as there are others that are useful and helpful. They can be called the “gardener friends”, because they help you to get rid of other insects that attack the plants in your garden. They depend on the harmful pests as a source of food. Examples of these helpful insects are Nematodes, praying mantis, lacewings, hover-flies, ladybugs, chalcids, ichneumon wasps and brachonids.
– Traps: They are used to attract pests, trap them and keep them away from plants. Examples of traps are yellow flypaper for aphids and whiteflies, sticky red sphere traps for apple maggot and pheremones which attract pests through their smell.
– Barriers: Another way for protecting plants from pests is using barriers. Examples of barriers are floating row covers, cloche and barrier paper.
– Sprays: They are used to kill the pests or the eggs on the leaves directly. There are many sprays that can be used such as Bacillus Thuringiensis, oil sprays (dormant oils, horticultural oils that are also known as summer, supreme or superior oil) and finally, insecticidal soap sprays.
