Natural ways of pest control for backyard organic farmer

A backyard organic farmer need to know natural ways of pest control. A well know method of natural pest control is to attract bird to your backyard garden which may help eat up the pest that otherwise will eat up your hard work.

This online merchant, The Stainless Steel Store has a range of outdoor stainless steel products which include a stainless steel bird feeder which just might do the job of attracting pest eating birds to your backyard organic garden.

You will probably need to water your plants for them to thrive. If you want a watering can that really last a long time, they have a large stainless steel watering can that comes with a 5 year warranty from the manufacturer.

Busy in the day and have no time for your backyard garden but will like to work on it at night? No sweat. Get a stainless steel candle lantern to light the way. It also comes with a 5 year warranty from the manufacturer.

Looks like all their products comes with 5 year warranty from the manufacturer, but I wouldn't be surprised if they last much more longer than that. That is the way I like things - to last. I still have my clothing from many, many years back. In fact I had a singlet from participating in the Penang Bridge marathon from 20 plus years back which only recently got misplaced. I don't like to throw away things. I think it is much more environmentally friendly to get things that last a very long time, like stainless steel products. You contribute less stuff to the landfill.

Stuff for your backyard organic garden

I have a Paypal account with a significant balance. I will like to use it to do some online shopping, so looking for online merchants for getting things for the home and garden. Here is just such a site offering great stuff for home and garden.

One of the principle of organic garden is to use nature for pest control. For example, you would like to attract birds to your backyard organic garden so that they will eat up the pests that would otherwise eat up your organic produce you work so hard to grow. One nice and aesthetic way would be to place a bird bath in your backyard organic farm. The above site has a section offering a wide selection of ShopWiki bird baths.

Other ways to control pests are to have vegetation that attract insects that may eat up the pest for you free of charge and labour, and I think having a nice hedge around your backyard organic farm may do the trick. But hedges need to be trimmed, otherwise they will become an eyesore. I will be good to have a hedge trimmer to make that task easy. There is again a great selection of hedge trimmers at ShopWiki hedge trimmers

There are other offerings for the home and garden at ShopWiki. I believe you can find anything you may conceivably need at ShopWiki. All you need to do is to get online and surf to that site.

Keeping pests at bay the organic way.

Sometime back, I had tried my hands at growing my own vegetables, but most of them except Malabar spinach (or Ceylon spinach) were attacked by pests. I was reluctant to use chemicals so I feeble attempt at home-grown vegetables was mainly aborted. Perhaps there is a solution.

According to CETDEM, pest infestation is not a problem but a symptom of imbalance. When symptoms appear, one should find out what causes it and remove the disturbing factors (Preventive measures). One can also carry out physical, biological and botanical controls (Control measures).

What are the disturbing factors? They include an imbalanced Agro-Ecosystem (caused by monoculture) and an imbalanced Soil Ecosystem (caused by a lack of organic matter, continuous cropping, use of agricultural chemicals which kill micro-organism). The solution will be, of course , to create a balanced agro-ecosystem and a balanced soild ecosystem

Balanced Agro-Ecosystem

The most important role is diversity and the methods include

• diverse cropping to increase the diversity of the population of predactors
• inter-cropping, including scattered planting of insect repellent and medicinal plants like basil, marigolds, ginseng, mint, serai citronella.
• planting perennial trees to attract insect-eating birds
• non-use of agrochemicals

Balanced Soil Ecosystem

• Methods to create and maintain a balanced soil ecosystem include
• crop rotation
• regular supply of organic matter like mulch, green manure, compost
• avoid mixing raw organic matter with the soil
• non-use of agrochemicals

Physical Controls

• Hand-picking done by catching the insects and other predactors like snails and removing them
• Light trap done by putting a light above a container of water so that the insects are attracted to the light and fall into the water
• Net cover. Covering the crops with a net to protect them from insect attack.

Biological Control

• Attracting birds (by planting trees) that eat the insects

Natural Pesticides

• ash
• tobacco dust or leaves
• neem leaves and seeds
• chilli
• pounded garlic

To control aphids, one can make a spray by soaking 250 gm of tobacco, 30 gm of soap flakes in 4 litres of water over 2 nights, sieve, then dilute with 1 part filtrate with 4 parts water.

Using pesticides, however, is not recommended by CETDEM.

Source: Organic Farming Publications
(CETDEM Organic Farming Project).

Note: Organic Farming courses and training are conducted by CETDEM. For more information, go to Courses and Training