Vegetable gardening doesn’t require acres. Enough fresh veggies for a healthy diet can be grown in 12-inch pots on your back deck.
An effective solution to most bugs that plague your vegetables quickly is to combine soap and oil together in a spray solution, using 1 tablespoon of mild dish or castile soap in 1 quart of water to spray all leaves and stems of plants with this spray mixture.
Pepper
Growing a flourishing vegetable garden takes dedication and care from all gardeners, yet even experienced home gardeners may run into pest issues. Pests may nibble and damage vegetables in your garden, leading to decreased yield and disrupting its ecosystem. Luckily, there are natural methods available to keep bugs away and ensure healthy plant life!
Pepper has long been used as a powerful and natural bug repellent, thanks to the capsaicin found in peppers. This compound helps deter insects such as ants, flea beetles and squash bugs from attacking your vegetables while simultaneously inhibiting weed growth and increasing plant health. For use, sprinkle crushed peppercorns around nearby vegetables or combine water and ground pepper into a spray to use this natural solution.
Vinegar is another natural bug repellent that can be sprayed on vegetables to repel bugs. Mix one part white vinegar (either white or apple cider vinegar will work) with three parts water in a spray bottle and add one teaspoon of dish soap for optimal results. Next, saturate both sides of each vegetable leaf with this solution as soon as they appear and use this spray against weeds in your garden bed!
Marigolds, basil, chives and mint all produce scents that naturally repel certain bugs, making them great additions to a vegetable garden. Not only can these herbs act as natural insect deterrents; their beauty adds another element to your space as well!
DIY pest-repelling spray can easily be made at home by mixing powerful concentrates of hot pepper, garlic, cinnamon and mint with water. The resultant spray can not only repel bugs but can also repel garden nuisances like rabbits and deer.
Frogs and toads can be beneficial to a vegetable garden by eating insects that would otherwise destroy it, while others such as rabbits or groundhogs may require an expensive fence for control. If these creatures become an issue in your garden, consider setting out birdbaths or feeder stations to attract predators such as birdhawks to help manage them more easily.
Garlic
Garlic plants make an excellent companion for vegetables as they deter many garden pests, including Japanese beetles, root maggots, carrot rust flies and tomato worms. When planted near roses to deter aphids. When used as an insecticide spray it works more like a repellent than an insecticide; making a homemade garlic spray by mixing equal parts vegetable oil and liquid soap in a jar then pouring the solution into a spray bottle using equal parts vegetable oil and liquid soap which coats bugs before spraying onto plants to repel insects as the mixture coats them and eventually kills them all!
As an excellent alternative to harsh chemical sprays, this mixture will not harm either your vegetables or soil and quickly eliminate many garden pests like cabbage maggots, aphids and leafhoppers. Use it on vegetables, flowers and fruit of all sorts; tomatoes, eggplants and squash are safe too!
Planting garlic and other herbs and spices around your vegetable garden is another natural way to repel bugs. Their strong scents repel most bugs while adding flavor and color to homegrown veggies. Peppermint, thyme, citronella geraniums, basil and lavender are excellent choices for repelling aphids, potato beetles, slugs, worms and caterpillars from your produce; use them on veggies, fruit trees or flowers, as well as creating homemade herbal vinegar, oil or vinegar sprays from scratch.
Companion planting (also called intercropping) refers to growing different crops together to enhance each other’s benefits and deter pests. By diversifying species alongside each other, monocultures – which attract pests more readily – can be avoided. For instance, growing onions alongside squash and lettuce will deter most slugs and snails while carrots repel cabbage worms and tomato hornworms.
Instead of spraying your vegetable garden with chemicals, invite nature into the equation by inviting toads, frogs and birds into your space – they’ll feed off of any bugs that plague them! Just provide a water source and some shrubs as shelter – the toads and frogs will come quickly to devour any pesky bugs you would otherwise need to kill off with harmful herbicides.
Vinegar
An optimal garden ecosystem is essential to the success of vegetable gardening, but pesticides may not always be the solution to bugs wreaking havoc in your plots. When spraying them with chemicals, not only are you killing off the pest but you may be negatively impacting other aspects of ecosystem as well, including beneficial insects and soil microbes that exist there as well.
Homemade vinegar insecticide is an all-natural alternative to chemical sprays. Simply combine one part vinegar –white or apple cider are great choices — with three parts water in a spray bottle and use this solution on vegetable plants and the surrounding garden bed in order to deter insects. The mixture won’t harm soil health or the beneficial insects in your garden (2, 3).
Vinegar can also help deter snails and slugs in your garden by placing a saucer filled with beer in the area; they will naturally be drawn towards it, but cannot fit inside; once their numbers have subsided you simply remove the beer before refilling your container (4, 5).
As tempting as it may be to reach for pesticide sprays when an aphid or hornworm appears in your collard greens or tomato, remember that prevention is always preferable to dealing with them later. Pesticides of any kind – organic or homemade- can leave toxic residues behind that harm vegetables while altering soil pH balance, killing beneficial insects or microbes (or all three! )(6).
If you find an insect in your garden that seems intent on attacking your veggies but cannot stop it from doing so, identify it first and learn more about its lifecycle. Some bugs like aphids and hornworms have parasitic wasps which lay eggs on them and eventually consume the bug from within (9). Instead of spraying harmful chemicals onto it to stop its attacks, leave it alone; it may just be doing what nature intended!
Orange Peels
Vegetable gardens require extensive labor and care, and it can be heartbreaking to witness your hard-won produce be destroyed by bugs and pests. While no garden can remain completely bug-free, there are ways you can reduce their numbers and protect your harvests.
Orange peels contain high concentrations of limonene, an organic chemical which acts as an effective natural insect repellent. Simply combine orange peels with white vinegar and water in a spray bottle to make an all-purpose cleaner that can kill bugs quickly without harming vegetables, soil or plants in any way. Spray it over vegetables, soil or plants as an all-around defense against unwanted critters without harming either them or their surroundings!
Neem oil, produced from the seeds of the neem plant, is another natural method to eradicate bugs from your garden. It can be used to kill or deter insects, worms, fungi and other undesirable organisms found therein. You can purchase it either in powder form or spray form and apply it directly onto soil near vegetables to keep pests at bay while harvesting crops!
Other natural methods to control bugs in your garden include adding frogs and toads as part of your landscape design, using a pond or birdbath, and inviting birds into it; birds that will consume any insects that threaten crops. It’s also wise to mulch soil with organic material in order to deter insects, weeds, and add compost annually for an improved garden.
Plant lavender flowers to add fragrance and help repel pests like aphids, beetles and other unwanted insects from your vegetable garden. Finally, it may be necessary to erect a high fence to keep deer and rabbits at bay; either chicken wire fencing or tall garden fencing would work depending on the size of your veggie patch.