Natural & Organic Pest Control Solutions for the Garden

Homemade Garden Remedies

Companion planting, or pairing plants to improve the garden.

Integrated pest management (IPM) can be used for controlling garden pests and diseases in the vegetable garden. Controlling vegetable garden pests and problems is a process that blends with the flow of the seasons in a vegetable garden. Garden pests and problems come and go. What gardeners need to keep in mind about IPM is:

Horticultural oil is an effective and ecologically friendly way to handle many garden insect pests and even some diseases. Most hort oils are some type of mineral oil, a refined petroleum product. The oil is usually combined with some type of emulsifying agent so that it can be mixed with water and used as a spray. You may see it listed as dormant, summer, all-season or even superior oil. Here’s what the difference is.

Vinegar, as well as stronger concentrations of acetic acid, can be an effective, organic way to kill weeds. Here are some tips for getting the best control when using vinegar or acetic acid as an herbicide.

Profiles of the most commonly used organic garden pesticides, including Sevin, insecticidal soap and oils and neem.

Another organic control has been added to the vegetable gardener’s arsenal with new studies that show adding worm compost can cut down on damage by sucking and chewing insects like aphids, caterpillars and mealy bugs.

Companion planting is an age old gardening technique of pairing two or more plants to gain some type of benefit,: vigorous growth, higher yield, repelling pests or attracting predators of common pests. Some companion plantings work, others disappoint. But the idea of strength in diversity is never truer than in the garden and that’s what...

If you have bagworms in your landscape, you’ve probably been told there’s not much you can do but cut them out of the tree and destroy them. New studies show promise that planting members of the Aster family, like daisies and gazania, near and/or around the susceptible tree will attract a natural predator of bagworm.

The plant health activator, Messenger, is neither a pesticide nor a fertilizer, although it has many advantages of both. Messenger fools a plant into thinking it is being attacked by a fungus, triggering the plant's defense mechanisms. It is environmentally friendly and non-toxic. Messenger shows great promise in helping gardeners to grow better plants and in cutting down on the need for fertilizers and pesticides.