The Home Herb Garden

If you are an avid gardener, then you know how difficult it can be to maintain herb garden pest control. If you are just getting started with an herb garden, you will want to know which pests are problems and how you can get rid of them safely. It is a good idea to check with a local agency to find out which pests are potential problems in your area. Depending on the area of the world you live in, you will have problems with different pests.

Once you have identified the most likely pests, you can make a determination on the best way to eliminate them. For herb garden pest control, you want to use natural ways to deter the bad insects since you plan to use the herbs medicinally or in your cooking. You don’t want to spray harmful chemicals on your herbs to kill the bugs and then turn around and give those chemicals to your family.

There are actually some good insects that will be beneficial to your garden and will take care of many of the bad ones, so this is a natural way to control the pest population. You don’t want to get rid of the good bugs at the same time as the bad, so identifying which pests you have is very important. Some of the bad insects include aphids. These are tiny soft‐bodied insects that feed on plants and like to be near the tips of the plants or on the underside of the leaves. Leafminers and spider mites can also be identified by the look of the leaves of your plants. Snails and slugs are often found in damp climates and tend to leave behind a slimy trail.

If you notice some of these bad bugs, you will hopefully also notice that they have attracted the good bugs which will help with your herb garden pest control. The Praying Mantis is a good bug that will eat almost any other insect and will keep the pest population down. Another good bug is a ladybug. They can each eat over fifty aphids per day. Wasps can be good because they pollinate for you and also help with controlling the aphid population.

If the natural cycle has not helped enough with herb garden pest control, you may want to plant herbs such as Pennyroyal that help to repel insects between other plants. As a last resort, look into some natural or organic pesticides. Make sure that whatever you use is safe for your family and targets the specific pests you have.