Tips on Fighting Bugs in Your Garden

Easy ins­ecticidal soap                                               

Keep a bar of soap next to your outdoor water faucet. When you wash your hands, rinse them into your watering can; when you water your plants, they'll get a nice dose of soap, which is a mild insecticide that kills soft-bodied bugs.

Rotate your veggies                          

It's the best way to make sure that surviving pests from last year's garden have a hard time finding the plants they most like to eat.

Attract apple and other fruit tree pests      

Use this solution placed in milk jugs and hung from tree limbs: Combine one cup (240 ml) each of water, vinegar, and sugar, and you'll collect lots of insects that mistake the mixture for ripening fruit.

Make a fly trap                                 

Make a fly trap from the same mixture and put it in jars whose lids have punched holes just wide enough for the flies to get through. Place the traps on your deck or porch so the flies are caught before they come into your house.

Too many June bugs?                                              

Although they don't eat plants, their larvae damage the lawn, and they make spending evenings outdoors unpleasant. On a rainless night, fill a large tub with water and place a lamp or shop light over it. Turn the light on after dark, and many of the June bugs that fly toward it will accidentally drop into the tub.

Reflective mulch                                           

Shiny silver mulch helps prevent thrips and other insects from finding your plants under this mulch because as they pass by, they're confused by the light and fly away. You can make your own reflective mulch by placing sheets of wide, heavy-duty aluminum foil around plants and anchoring them with stones.

A rhubarb insecticide                                              

Soak three pounds of rhubarb leaves in one gallon of water for 24 hours. Bring the water to a boil and let it simmer for 30 minutes. Add one ounce of laundry soap flakes and let it cool before spraying it on bug-ridden plants.

Save your eggshells                                      

Save your eggshells and use them to repel a wide range of garden pests. Crushed eggshells deter slugs and snails, and a layer of shells placed around onions and cabbage helps to discourage root maggots.

Use floating row covers

Use floating row covers to prevent damage by secretive critters that you rarely see, such as the moths whose larvae become squash vine borers, or flies whose eggs hatch into beet leaf miners.

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Fighting bugs in your garden can be simple.