For the health or environmentally conscience gardener, using chemical pesticides is simply not an option. Common chemical pesticides used or stored incorrectly can pose a health risk to you, your family, your pets, and can kill beneficial insects that actually help your garden plants. Moreover, chemical pesticides can eventually find their way into our rivers, lakes, and municipal water sources.
Unfortunately, many gardeners who implement basic organic gardening methods such as companion planting often find that these pest control techniques simply aren't enough to deal with the large number of insects and other pests that may attack garden plants. So what is the organic gardener to do? The good news is that there are many tried and true organic gardening products on the market that deal with most ordinary garden pests.
How do they work? Nature herself has provided us with numerous plants whose extracts make very effective pesticides. For example, many organic pest control products such as Orange Guard use a citrus-fruit base, such as lemons and oranges.
The active ingredient d-Limonene found in citrus oils kill many flying and crawling insects on contact by destroying the waxy coating of the insect's respiratory system. With their respiratory system damaged, the insect basically suffocates.
Other products use garlic as a base and work to repel insects. Hot peppers and essential oils of herbs such as cloves also work wonders to repel insects and other pests.
SharpShooter natural organic insect killer uses lemon as its base. This is an excellent organic pesticide for the hobby gardener with a variety of plants, as it is designed to kill a host of flying and crawling insects on contact. If you have suffered from problems with aphids, adult whiteflies, bean beetles, fire ants, rose chafers, caterpillars, earwigs, Japanese beetles, etc., SharpShooter is an excellent product to try out. It is safe to use even on the day of harvest.
Green Light's Organic Lawn and Garden Spray is another excellent all-purpose product to repel and kill the most common yard and garden pests including fleas, grasshoppers, ants, mosquitoes, pillbugs, and ticks. The active ingredients of this spray include sesame oil, clove oil, and thyme oil. It works great on a variety of plants including fruits, vegetables, and turf. As a spray attached to your hose, it has the added advantage of being applied to small or large areas of your garden or lawn.
In addition to insects, many gardens suffer attacks from animals which can destroy gardens and eat flowers, vegetables, and fruit crops. Organic gardeners recognize that it is usually humans who are infringing on the habitat of wild animals and not the other way around. This Hot Pepper Wax is an excellent way to keep animals, and even many insects, from damaging your garden without harming the animal in the process. It works well both on ornamental plants and food crops. It is made from one of the hottest peppers around, the cayenne pepper, which serves as a natural repellent for chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, gophers, hedgehogs, etc.
The food grade wax helps to keep the pepper extracts working even after heavy rainfalls. Pepper sprays are a favorite of organic vegetable and fruit gardeners. As a testament to how natural this spray is, you can actually use it on your tomatoes in the morning, and pick and eat them in the afternoon, with no harm to you or your family!
Another outstanding animal repellent is this Organic Deer Repellent, which works to repel deer and other animals such as rabbits and raccoons. Once applied, the repellent lasts up to 90 days. It uses a series of natural constituents such as garlic powder and safflower oil which deer and other animals find unappealing, either because of their smell or their taste.
Happy Gardening!!!
