BEER; An Effective Method for Slug Control [Who Knew!?]

As in so many areas of life, the best pest control in organic gardening is prevention. As much as possible within the space of your garden, rotate (move) your crops around the garden so that no crop is planted in the same place for at least three years. 

Not only should you keep the same plant from going in the same place, but keep other related plants out, too. This will help save your plants from both diseases and pests that build up in the soil around the roots of a particular kind of plant. 

In addition, it’s good to grow as many different crops as you feel comfortable taking care of. Besides giving you some harvest even if one of your crops is completely destroyed by pests, this diversity is itself a form of pest control – pests move quickly through large plantings of the same crop, but more slowly through small plantings of diverse crops. 

Most plants have few defenses when they are small, but as they grow older, their stems get thicker and less tasty for insects, and they develop the ability to release bitter or otherwise unpleasant substances in response to insect feeding. Their resistance to disease also increases.

Read MORE: Dealing with Pests in the Garden