Doing Away With Chemicals - Natural Pest Control

More gardeners are turning to natural pest control as a means of reducing the amounts of chemicals they use. While the most natural way of controlling the pests in your garden is picking them off plants or garden beds and drowning them, there are less labor-intensive ways of pest control available. From introducing other insects to electronic pest control, there are various ways to avoid the use of chemicals in your quest for pest control.

One of the most natural ways to control pests in your garden is the use of beneficial organisms. These are creatures such as insects or nematodes that you introduce to your garden to eat or destroy pests. There are three types of biological pest control: Parasitoids (creatures that develop inside the pest and kill it when they emerge as adults), Pathogens (such as nematodes and fungi), and Predators (which eat the pests).

While these are all natural solutions to pest problems, they can themselves become pests when not kept under control. It is therefore best to seek advice from local garden stores regarding what is the best control measure for your area before you begin.

Going High-Tech with Your Pest Control

A more modern solution for pest control is electronic devices. These can use various means to control pests in your garden by scaring or repelling the pests. Ways of controlling pests can include using sound waves, visual aids or ultraviolet and UV rays. This is a good option when you are dealing with control of larger pests, such as birds, stray animals, moles and rodents.

These forms of control are favored by many gardeners as they deter, rather than kill the animal (though many forms of electronic rodent control do kill the animal, the claim being that it is more humane than traps).

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