Organic Pest Control Remedies

This is a great time to start thinking of pest control.

We should only use pest control when absolutely necessary. It's best to have a healthy mix of good and bad bugs in the garden. When you fight off all the bad bugs, the good bugs will leave your garden in search of food (lady bugs being one of them). So only use pest control when the good bugs and birds are losing the battle.

Wakeup World posted a great list of Organic Pest Control Remedies to help arm us. 

I hope you find this information helpful.

Organic Pest Control 

~ Happy Gardening ~

A Garden Insectary

A new friend of mine Debbie Ballentine owner of Native Heart Landscapes sent me a link for Natural  Pest Control. I will be telling you more about Debbie in an up coming blog post for the Haven Garden. But until then I hope you find this link useful.

In My Garden 

Last weekend I took down one of the greenhouses to make room for my potted fruit trees. Removing the greenhouse also allows the small strawberry bed access to more sun.

Banana, Blueberries, Avocado and Nectarine

The Day Avocado put on a lot of new growth over the Winter. Two more years and I should have my first avocado.

The planting grids have been installed in beds 3 and 4.

I planted 4 squares of carrots in bed 3 and in bed 4 I planted  4 squares of lettuce, 3 broccoli and 2 cauliflower.

Bed 2 is looking good.

Carrots

Spring Onions

Pak Choy

In the Greenhouse the seedlings are doing very well. I will need to transplant the tomatoes into bigger pots soon.

Peppers and tomatoes

Cucumbers and tomatoes

That's it for now. If we get a break in the rain tomorrow you can find me in the garden.

Organic Pest Control

OK don't get too excited I didn't find the ultimate organic pest control... or did I?

While I was harvesting lettuce in bed 4 this morning something caught my eye. When I took a closer look I saw it, Mother Nature's pest control...

Photo Below: An ant carrying a green aphid. Click on the photo to enlarge it.



and then I saw this... a team of two ants carrying this small green looper.



And when I couldn't be any more amazed, while I was working on the garden lights this little gal was flying past me.... Note that two of the holes are filled in with what looks to be dirt.



Since I needed this outlet for the garden lights I pulled it off to clean it out. As I was pulling out the dirt I was also pulling out live baby loopers. She had been packing the holes with food. Needless to say I was wowed by the pest world today.

As I said above I harvested some baby lettuce which weighed in at 1.6 oz's.



I was also able to pick some "Oriental Giant" spinach weighing in at 1.8 oz's.



As well as the Catalina Baby Leaf spinach weighing in at 1 oz.



All in all I added another 4.4 oz's to my total harvest.



I was happy to see lots of carpenter bees in the garden today. I only saw one honey bee though.

Photo Below: Black carpenter bee in a male spaghetti squash flower.



Then the bee moved to the female flower. This is good... very good.



I planted 3 squares of Italian Pesto Basil and 3 squares of Italian Cameo Basil in bed 3.



Over in bed 2 the English Cucumbers are growing very nicely.





Photo Below: The pole beans are starting to mix in with the sugar snap peas.



The Pumpkin on a Stick is showing a few buds.



This is not the prettiest plant in the garden but I can't wait to see if I get mini pumpkins on a stick.



Photo Below: Another pumpkin on a stick trying to grow out of the compost bin. If you remember the story from a previous post I had thrown the pumpkin on a stick into my compost bin and then a week or so later I retrieved some of the pumpkins to see if I could collect the seeds and grow them. Well as you can see I left some behind.




Random Photos...

Photo Below A Blue Jay collecting coco hair for her nest.