Don't Let Bugs Ruin Your Raised Beds! Try These 4 Simple Non-Toxic Tricks For Pest Control
Keep your raised vegetable garden beds healthy and happy by using these clever barriers and natural pest control tips.
Gardeners work hard all spring and summer preparing, planting and tending their vegetable gardens to ensure they have a delicious harvest when the time comes. Unfortunately, the appearance of veggie garden pests can make all that hard work even harder.
Whether you have a single, small raised vegetable bed, or a massive plot of edible delights, bugs, slugs, birds, and mammals can take a toll on your plants. Spring is the time to install preventive barriers and get your pest arsenal ready for when you transplant veggie starts outside. Luckily, there are some easy and natural steps to get rid of vegetable garden pests after they strike, too.
Keep reading to learn about the best natural methods for preventing and dealing with pests in your raised bed vegetable garden. I have four fool-proof tricks that will help beginners and garden gurus alike!
Article continues below1. The Fortress Method (For Birds, Bugs, and Mammals)
The best way to keep your garden pest free without the use of harsh chemical pesticides is installing a barrier. You won’t have to use any sprays if the pests never make it to your produce! I have protected seedlings with cheap garden cloches, aka plastic colanders, with great success. However, they only work while the seedlings are small. There are cuter and larger wire garden cloches available from Amazon which will keep seedlings and young plants safe from birds, squirrels, and groundhogs.
Once your plants get bigger, a taller cover will allow them to keep growing while still staying protected from bugs, birds, and pesky critters. Vego Garden has an awesome mesh cover system that works with their raised garden beds, but also can be used with other types of raised beds or even inground plantings.
If you have a Vego Garden raised bed, this system attaches to it, but can also be used with any other raised bed you may have.
Cute wire mesh garden cloches will keep birds, squirrels, groundhogs and deer away from your young plants.
This 6' x 10' insect and bird netting can be cut to any size you need. Just add stakes or hoops to create a simple structure.
2. Double-Duty Natural Remedy (For Aphids and Mites)
No matter how well you cover and protect your raised bed veggies, some pests will slip through. Pests often overwinter underground and can pop up underneath whatever barrier you have chosen. Enter, neem oil. Neem oil is a naturally derived vegetable oil of the neem tree. It is incredibly helpful for pest control and also battling fungal infections in your garden.
It treats infestations of mealybugs, thrips, aphids, mites, cabbage worms, leaf miners, caterpillars, and more, but doesn't harm birds, worms, honey bees, or ladybugs. And if your cucumber plants always get powdery mildew (like mine) neem oil will knock that out too! You can find neem oil from Amazon or your local garden center.
3. The Powder Barrier (For Crawling Insects)
If your garden suffers from crawling pests like cucumber beetles, cutworms, ants, or Japanese beetles, diatomaceous earth is a great way to control populations. Pair diatomaceous earth (DE) with netting to really up your chances of winning the bug battle. Sprinkle it around the edge of your raised vegetable beds to create a deadly barrier for bugs. DE is made of ground up diatoms, which are fossilized aquatic organisms. When the powder is dusted on plants and surfaces, crawling insects get cut up by the tiny fossils which cause them to dry out and die. You can find food-grade diatomaceous earth from Amazon or your local garden store.
Safety note: While DE is a safe and non-toxic mechanical pest control, the powder can still hurt your lungs if you inhale it, so wear a dust mask when using. It also doesn’t discriminate between beneficial insects and pests, so use wisely.
4. The Shock Barrier (For Slugs & Snails)
Slugs and snails can wreak havoc in a vegetable bed. You go to bed with a wonderful patch of lettuce and wake up to utter destruction the next morning. Creating a snail and slug trap is a great way to draw them away from your plants, but a simple ring of copper tape will protect your beds even further. I had never heard of this until recently, but copper reacts with the mucus of slugs and snails which results in what feels like an electrical shock to them.
Apply a 3-inch (7.62 cm) line of copper tape around the rim of your raised bed or plant pots and slugs and snails will steer clear. It doesn’t harm them, just keeps them out! You can find copper tape from Amazon. I’m very excited to try this one myself!
Shop Pest-Proofing Essentials
Mix neem oil concentrate with water and spray away the bugs. The pump saves your hands and forearms from fatigue.
Makes 12 gallons of neem oil spray so you can keep pests and powdery mildew off of your vegetables all summer.
Use with the AgFabric insect barrier listed at the top of the article to give plants room to grow and keep pests out.
Don't let any bugs or bunnies sneak under your protective mesh barrier. These staples will secure the fabric to the soil.
Cucumber beetles and other common pests love nasturtiums. Plant these away from your veggies to draw bugs to them!
Plant marigolds around borders and in between rows of vegetables to repel pests. They look great and work hard.
