Organic Gardening Pest Control

In organic gardening, man-made chemicals and substances are avoided as much as possible. The only man-made things that may be allowed are the garden implements that you use. That is why the use of fertilizers as well as pesticides is not allowed since they can harm not only the environment but also the health of human beings. Conventional gardening using such harmful chemicals has led to serious environmental pollution and the destruction of the soil bed.

Organic gardening practices the use of natural means to grow and cultivate plants. This includes in trying to control pests. Organic gardeners do this by trying to invite beneficial insects into their garden as a means of natural pest control. Beneficial insects are those groups of insects that are considered as predators for known plant pests. Beneficial insects try to eat plant pests in an organic garden to control their population. In this way, no man-made pesticides are used and the beneficial insects just do what they do naturally as a means to protect an organic garden from pests.

There are many ways that organic gardeners use in order to introduce beneficial insects into their garden. One of them is by making the organic garden more attractive for beneficial insets as a natural habitat. This means that the organic garden should have pretty much everything that beneficial insects need to live- enough food, water supply as well as certain areas that they can consider as their home.

One of the most effective ways of attracting beneficial insects is by planting certain plants that "attract" the insects to come. Some examples of these plants include coreopsis, feverfew, and sweet alyssum. When planted on your vegetable bed, they will attract beneficial insects that will feed on the aphids and whiteflies that usually harm vegetables.

One of the most common of beneficial insects that you would want to attract into your organic garden would be the butterflies. Not only would they help get rid of some common pests for you, they can also help give more life and color to your organic garden. There are also some plants that are known as butterfly "feeders". These plants are where the butterflies prefer to lay their eggs. As the eggs turn into larvae, they eat the plants before maturing. Three of these plants are Queen-Anne's lace, dill weed, and fennel. A good organic gardening practice is to have these plants in your garden as a good way to attract butterflies.