What are your top five organic gardening tricks?
We’re seeing a number of complaints about snails and slugs this year and I thought it was pretty common to use beer traps to bait them and drown them, but I guess not. Do you have tricks you use to combat garden problems without the use of chemicals? Here are a few I use:
1.garlic planted around the outside of garden beds to deter deer and some insects.
2. Bt Bacillus thuringensis for cabbage worms.
3. Diatomaceous earth for slugs and snails.
4. Crop rotation.
5. Proper pH for the crop.
The last two are common sense but some new gardeners might not be aware of them. Got some others?
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1. Beer for slugs and snails
2. Rolled up newspapers catch earwigs
3. Catch pests and blend them with water, let set a few days, then spray them on the plants the pests are attacking.
4. Milk for powdery mildew. Mix 9 to 1 with water and spray once a week.
5. Cinnamon is a natural fungicide
Wow, I wish I had five tips. I only have three, and one might be a myth.
1. Compost! It’s free, easy, and plants love it. You can compost your non-meat food scraps and/or yard waste. I dump our rabbit’s litter box in the garden all fall and winter, then in early spring mix it into the soil. Note: You CAN NOT do this with cat litter.
2. Organic bug spray for pests. I use Captain Jack’s Dead Bug Brew. It’s bacteria-based and has saved my basil from june beetles for the past few years in a row.
3. Planting marigolds to help repel pests. I know people who swear this works, but other sources say it doesn’t. This is the first year I’ve tried it, and I planted the marigolds before I heard it may not actually work. At least it will look pretty, having my garden surrounded by a border of flowers.
@MissAusten I use the marigold thing too. The “experts” say it doesn’t work. I beg to differ. Or, it could be on their own they don’t really work, but in combination with a few other tricks they do.
I am not bothered by insect ‘pests’ just deer over this way.
I make the worlds most plant friendly fertilizer….water my plants with recycled goose poo pool water…a witches brew of green goose tea. lol
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