Grow Healthy Vegetables Without Pestacides

When you go out in your garden, and see insects eating your plants,don't reach for the bug spray. Do you really want to spray you food with poison? And bug sprays kill all the bugs, not just the ones that are eating your plants. It will kill the bees, butterflies,and all the good bugs we call beneficial. It sometimes kills birds too and takes away their food source because they eat bugs.

The first thing you need to know is that there's two kinds of bugs, pest who eat your plants, and beneficials, bugs that eat the bad bugs and bees who pollinate the flowers. They say we now have a shortage of honey bees, but not in my backyard. I plant lots of flowers with my food plants to bring them in to my yard There are many different species in my garden, honeybees, leaf cutter-bees,bumblebees and some others I can't identify.No threat of death by bug spray in my yard, The only minor problem is my Germain Shepard who had discovered, when they were buzzing her head and annoying her that they are quite tasty. So if I see her in the garden after dinner having dessert, I have to make her stop. Midnight is always forgiven, because she does such a good job of keeping four legged pest out. She can be in the house napping, yet always know if a squirrel is sneaking in.

Planting flowers with your vegetables will also bring in the good bugs. The best way to fight a army of bad bugs is to send a army of beneficial bugs to eat them. Candy tuft, marigold,yarrow,dill,butterfly bushes,cone flowers,and bee-balm are just of few of the plants that the good guys like. Some of the good guys are ladybugs,lacewings,praying mantis,paper wasp,parasitic wasp,and spiders,yea I know they can be scary,and there are some that can be poisonous to humans but I have never had a problem with spiders, and have a lot of them. They go their way and I go mine. I never ever, have seen a spider eat a plant and so I never kill them.,

Some of the bad bugs are sow bugs,grasshoppers,tomato worms,and slugs.Slugs are just awful and can do a lot of damage fast, and sometimes, in these cases, there are other methods that you can safely use.When slugs are being a problem, I throw them a party.I buy them some beer and pour it in shallow disposable bowels, then place. around the plants that are being ate.Do this at dusk, for they come out at night The slugs, who love beer, will crawl in the bowls and drown. Next day, just throw away.If you catch a lot, you can repeat, but use fresh beer,because like humans, slugs don't like stale beer. Also, if you have dogs or cats that like beer, be careful that they don't get drunk.

Another method that can help, when you have caterpillars or tomato worms is bacillus thuringiensis, bt for short. Bt is sold at some garden stores, and is a spore forming bacterium that only kills the bugs that ingest it, by eating the plant.It is safe for mammals.I personally like the powder form that sprinkles on. It also comes in spray form.If the bugs don't eat my plants they won't die.

I also want to mention, another helper, that I have in my garden, and that is garden snakes. Keeping a little bit of yard a little wild, tall grass, rocks, some bushes gives them somewhere to hang out.Okay, they use to scare me, but they eat a lot of bugs, they keep the mice out of the pumpkin patch too, and now,when, mowing the lawn, I stop and wait for them to get out of the way.Be sure though,if you take off your jacket, and leave it on the patio, that you, shake it before you take it in the house. They surprised me this way, and yes they can climb up chairs.

The last method, I want to tell you about, is kill the bad bugs on sight. When my grandsons and I go out in the garden, we look for bugs. It's a fun way for them to learn about plants and bugs, and they can identify many kinds. I hate to step on big fat tomato worms or grasshoppers,but the boys,and they ask if their not sure, good bug or bad,and when I say bad, It's yes, smash and crunch.Good bye bad bugs.