Get Rid of Pests in the Garden, the Lazy Way

[Music] are pests in your garden getting you down are bugs rabbits deer squirrels eating all your plants there has to be a better way well there is an and it happens to be a bunch of stuff we probably already have I do have to apologize for the infomercial intro here but honestly as proper lazy gardeners we don't want to have to put out a bunch of fabrics buy a whole bunch of sprays understand math and other ratios like that we basically want to put seeds in the ground and come back when they're ready to pick and that's what we're going to talk about in this video the first thing that we're going to do is ignore all of the absolutely silly advice that you're probably hearing from other YouTubers about keeping chickens in your garden chickens in your garden is the worst idea I could possibly imagine because not only do they like doing this little thing on top of your baby plants killing them they also like uprooting our plants digging our garden beds right out of the place that we want them and also eating our delicious first fruits chickens are good for three things Fried Chicken making butt fruit also know as eggs and that's all actually I don't know what why they're here if you absolutely insist on using birds in your garden a far better option would be to use Ducks very specifically runner ducks because they're very bottom heavy and they don't tend to cause nearly as much damage as some of the other options available our first and probably best weapon against slugs snails and other things that leave a slimy Trail are actually the foundation of lazy gardening themselves wood chips wood chips do yes Harbor moisture and make conditions in our garden more wet which is indeed the ideal climate for Slugs snails and other things that leave a trail but when those wood chips Dry Out In the Heat of the midsummer which is actually wind slugs are our biggest opponent in the garden they are actually prickly dry yucky spots for Slugs snails and other things to have to climb over so our first tip is literally just use wood chip the next thing is to use little shards of sharp things like eggshells eggshells are fantastic sources of calcium and other valuable nutrients in our garden but when we crumple them up around our plants they also provide these sharp yucky edges that slugs snails and other things like that don't want to actually have to climb over beer something that would never be proudly consumed in this household is also a fantastic anti-slug snail and creepy Cori deterrent if you happen to notice extra slug snail Etc pressure around any of your precious plants put a little vial of this vial substance around them and you'll notice that you will trap those guys and then you can feed the drunk happy little slugs to whatever chickens or other garbage creatures you happen to have lingering around your homestead waiting to slurp those guys up two other quick tips when it comes to the slimy creepy CES copper everywhere when I am doing any kind of electrical project I will strip the electrical wires out of my Rox wire and then use that to kind of line my garden beds I'm always looking for shiny objects in the field so here's a copper Rod which I'm not actually sure what it was for but I can put it near my strawberries and it will for whatever reason science will deter the slugs from wanting to come in the garden and my personal favorite due to the fact that I am absolutely obsessed with what we make inside of here and the fact that my entire life works because of what we make in here coffee grounds are a fantastic source of not just nitrogen for our garden or a brilliant way to restart our compost piles coffee grounds also happen to be a fantastic Slug and other creepy crawly deterrent so don't waste the stuff that you make every morning put it around the plants you like it's very easy as you can see in this section of the garden we can see a bunch of lazy gardening pest prevention tips in action so first and foremost here's a dill plant this is a fantastic deterrent plant it smells like pickles a lot of people don't love pickles as much as I do and a lot of pests don't like the smell of pickles nearly as much once again as I do similarly we have a whole bunch of garlic and these little cuties right here are garlic Scapes this is the preeminent sign that your Garlic's almost ready to pick but Pro tip these themselves are the most delectable treat that will come from your garden plant at all so make sure not to waste those it's like a little asparagus spear that's like 100% garlic this is guaranteed to get rid of all vampires mosquitoes also potential lovers just saying spicy oh my God it was so hot one of the best things for lazy gardeners about D itself is how it is a very easily self-seeding plant so you'll actually see Dill all over in the garden did I put it there I mean once like four years ago yes but from then on the Wind moved it around for me and I'm really thankful for it because it's all over and um doing its job as a lazy Gardener I'm a huge proponent of adding Mulch and other organic matter of using cardboard to suppress weeds and one of the most frequently asked questions I get about using this kind of stuff in our garden is won't that attract termites won't it attract earwigs won't it attract ants what about snakes and of course what about those little rly poliy so here's the thing I've lived in the South for 5 years now termites are a huge issue here I have probably 20 semi trucks worth of wood chips delivered to my farm every year have termites actually become an issue in my home my house or anything else absolutely not have have they become an issue in my garden I do occasionally see them but here's the thing termites do not eat our plants nor contrary to Common belief do roly py or earwigs actually all three of those are insects that Thrive by eating decaying plant matter so if you happen to have a bunch of termites roly pulley or earwigs in your garden it's not because they themselves are the things that are eating your plants it's that you have some opportunists coming in to eat at the buffet that's caused by some damage by something else there are tons of venomous snakes here in Tennessee and to be totally honest I have yet to see a single snake in my garden hiding underneath a piece of cardboard or a tarp or anything else where I have in fact seen the most venomous snakes is on my porch right outside my house and I'm not quite sure what to do about that aside from getting more kittens which in case you didn't know cats are fantastic snake Predators as our pigs but I don't know if Adam will let me have pigs on our porch this $10 blacklight flashlight has been one of my favorite Garden purchases not just because it helps me to make hornworms a favorite Pest of tomato plants and other things in the night trade family like Peppers Etc gloin the dark it also has helped massively to feed my psychosis about germs and gross bodily fluids in the home as well by the way don't use tomato cages for tomatoes they're actually fantastic for cucumbers and lots of other climbing plants but they really suck for tomatoes the only reason I have this thing on here now is actually to not lose it in in the jungle that's growing around it before I put the actual structure up and speaking of my OCD which I'm not sure we were but now we are I got a vacuum to vacuum the spots that I couldn't get with my other vacuum and it has turned out to be an enormous resource in the garden as well I'll be totally honest here and say that I don't actually vacuum my plants very often this is kind of more just like a silly thing that I do every once in a while when I notice that there's a bunch of jerks eating my plants but the reason the vacuum is such an effective fux against all of these pests is because some of these pests when squished will actually admit a foul odor which attracts more of their little jerk friends to join on the plants so we don't want to do that some other pests like the harlequinn beetle are extremely sneaky and very fast and so we want to instead of trying to catch them vacuum them up really quick while we see them and then we've got them and also the eggs of a lot of these pests are so small that it's really easy to accidentally knock them off directly down below where there's a veritable Buffet once they hatch than to just vacuum them off in the first place does this look ridiculous to our neighbors absolutely is it something I actually do very often absolutely not but since we're on the topic of really ridiculous gadgets anyway this little electric tennis racket is one of my favorite ways to combat the carpenter bees that I often find in the garden and truly it's so satisfying but as I talk about these gadgets I'm also going to tell you not to go buy random stuff for your garden because quite frankly you don't need it you don't need the organic ready chemicals you don't need any of that stuff you just need a little bit of understanding about how to create the best possible environment for the things we do want how to discourage the things we don't want and how to tell the good things and the bad things apart so we don't actually kill the wrong ones I grew up listening to my dad complain about rabbits and deer and other pests that would hop over the fence and into his garden and I have three-pronged approach when it comes to Deer rabbits Gophers squirrels and all kinds of other things which might come into my garden and steal all the delicious treats I'm trying to grow for myself the first prong is that my inner garden fence is actually protected by an outer garden fence that has electric lines both on the top and the bottom which are constantly charged with an electrical charge keeping deer from jumping over the fence keeping raccoons and bunnies and other tunnelers like Gophers from coming under the fence and then this outer fence also happens to contain my alpacas which are contrary to Common belief here on YouTube not good Predator protectors but they are very Stompy and when they see little like things that don't belong in this area around they tend to be really good at chasing them off we also have my donkeys which absolutely hate cats foxes and basically anything else small as well and finally we have my livestock Guardian dogs which are great at protecting my goats as well as incidentally protecting my garden here I understand however gentle viewer that you probably don't have the option to build two fences to have donkeys alpacas and livestock Guardian dogs guarding your garden and so this handy dandy product from my friend Billy at perap pastur farms bone sauce is a fantastic deterrent for rabbits deers go and lots of other things it's a concentrated thing you spray on your plants and it helps keep those things away here's kind of a twofer first of all if we notice that any of our plants are being especially damaged it is actually really helpful for us to remove the most damaged leaves from the plants and feed those to our chickens or compost them in our hot hot compost which will kill the pest it is important that we remember that hot part of the compost and not just put them in a cold pile where they'll be able to matriculate and create more and more pests that will then eat our stuff removing the diseased or half eaten leaves is helpful for a lot of things first of all it's very likely that some pest has laid some eggs on these leaves and giving them to our chickens or putting them in our compost will kill those things but also it will help our plants to recover from the damage of these pests faster because if we don't remove damaged leaves then the plant will put a ton of energy into repairing the leaves that it currently has instead of just putting new energy into creating new leaves which will ultimately be better solar panels cuz they have less holes in them and will ultimately serve the plant better as well and this my friends would be a prime candidate for something that I would say should go directly into the chicken coop and since we are in fact here in this very concentrated densely planted Brasa patch do as I say and not as I do if you want to have good results in your garden don't plant a whole bunch of the exact same species all in one spot because chances are quite high that all of the same pests and predators that will plag their cabbages and the kales and the other things in the same plant family will all congregate to the area where there's a veritable buffet for them to eat from so let's interplant our plants with other kinds of plants from different plant families so that we don't get a whole bunch of these same kinds of pests all in the same kinds of places since this is actually a video about pests I do feel I would be remiss not to mention the cacophony going on around us in this video at this moment directly behind me in my pond project I've teased about 300 billion times on this channel already we have the tree frogs that are sounding a lot like bottle baby lambs that absolutely need to be fed immediately which as someone who's done that many times feels very stressed hearing this all the time but we also have the added treat this year of 177e plague of cicas if you're in the Northwest and you don't know what I'm talking about my God there's one right as we speak they're very loud they're very obnoxious and I googled for the sake of this video ways to get rid of cicas cuz I thought it would be funny and here's what Google said Google recommends that we waited out AKA wait for the CES to leave use fans and other sound machines to drown out the sounds create noise barriers so that you don't have to hear them as much prune your trees we've done that and we still seem to have a few million of those around our property use netting the last and probably most helpful piece that Google gave us was consult professionals about how to get rid of them thank you Google as you can hear our cicada problem has been solved our next line of defense when it comes to pests in the garden is being able to actually tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys and so on the occasion that we as lazy gardeners are out with our little vacuums or our weird electric fly swatter things or if we are ever actually spraying any kind of deterrence we want to be able to tell who it is that we're nixing and who it is that we're inviting to the Tea Party here's a list of the good guys in the garden under no circumstances should you do anything to deter or get rid of or kill or accidentally vacuum any of these ones ladybugs also known as ladybird beetles ladybugs are probably the most popular pesticide insects we have in our Gardens and that's because they eat aphids I myself found out that I was defly allergic to ladybugs when I decided to order 2,000 of them and release them in my garden but first as a good content Creator W I made a photo shoot of the releasing process and then my eyes swelled shut and my doctor told me that ladybugs secrete the same kind of fluids that lobsters do and my shellfish allergy really didn't help me in that situation lace Wings their larvae consume aphids caterpillars and other soft-bodied insects hoverflies adult hoverflies feed on flower nectar and help pollinate some crops but it is the larvae that are important predators in the garden the tiny nearly invisible slug likee larvae scour the undersides of plant leaves for aphids and eat them as their primary food source ground beetles eat slugs snails cutworms and other soil dwelling pests praying mantises sees praying Manti anyway they hunt a variety of garden pests including caterpillars beetles and grasshoppers parasitic wasps lay eggs on or in pest insects such as caterpillars aphids and beetles spiders though their webs are very obnox ous and sometimes quite scary will catch and eat a wide range of insects including mosquitoes and flies both of which have potential to be good but mostly are bothersome and disgusting and gross and we don't want them dragonflies pre on mosquitoes and other small flying insects damsel bugs which I've often accidentally mistaken for squash bugs please don't do that my friend damel bugs are a huge helper in our garden because they feed on aphids caterpillars Leaf Hoppers and other negative insects the larvae of soldier be feed on insect eggs and their larvae while the adults can actually pollinate a lot of the flowers that will produce fruit and/or flowers in our garden assassin bugs attack a variety of insects including caterpillars beetles and flies they also look real weird make sure you check them out the very strangely named big eyed bugs which to me look exactly like flies are also Avid Eaters of aphids caterpillars and mites I used to think that robber flies were the same thing as horse flies so I would chase them around like a maniac with my electric fly water but now I regret that because I now know that Rober flies are actually good for our garden because they're really good at capturing and consuming other insects that happen to be flying around them at any given time earwigs while sometimes pest themselves generally speaking are great Garden Predators because they eat aphids mites and a lot of other Garden pests too so if you see the earwigs maybe put an earplug in and protect your ear and then just let them do their thing in the garden cuz they're pretty good fireflies also known as lightning bugs are fantastic Garden Predators because they feed on slugs snails and other small invertebrates so don't kill those ones my friends they're great I love amaranth not just because it's a beautiful pop of color All Over the Garden but also because it is a fantastic trap plant or sacrificial plant which is exactly what it sounds like it is a plant that attracts a bunch of the creepy brollies that might otherwise creep and crawl on our other plants that we want to eat that then land on the amaranth eat the leaves have their ories lay their eggs whatever else and then we can just pull the plant do a little chop and drop action and there we have it there are however a bunch of trap plants we can put in our garden that will help to protect our plants from the Predators at large those are nerum flowers which in Tennessee are very hard to grow unless you plant them very early in the season cuz it's frankly just too hot for them here but when we lived in Washington I planted them all over the place ners attract aphids white flies squash bugs and cabbage Loopers which basically means that they're going to best protect our tomatoes cucumbers brasas and radishes radishes are absolutely disgusting Garden feces but happen to also help protect the rest of our plants so it's probably a good idea to plant them or whatever they attract flea beetles and root maggots which protects our cucumbers squash melons and cabbages emphasis on the melons because watermelon is our favorite food marold flowers attract aphids and nematodes which help our Tomatoes beans peppers and melons mustard makes the most disgusting condiment known to man but they also help to attract flea beetles and aphids which protects our Tomatoes potatoes and beans from said flea beetles and AIDS blue hubard squash don't even ask me what that's for tends to attract squash B beetles or Vine boore beetles and that keeps them away from our cucumbers our melons and the other things that actually taste good and we want to eat shl which doesn't even sound like a real plant but it does exist I promise attracts slugs which then keeps those slugs away from the other things that they might eat Dill also known as dillweed also known as God's companion to cucumbers for dill pickles the Lord's fruit diverts hornworms from being attracted to Our tomato plants and then attracts the horn worms to the dill which then is not damaged by the horn worms and then we can shine our black light right on them illuminate them and feed them right to our chickens borage sounds a lot like Forge it's not attracts tomato horn norms and protects our tomatoes and our strawberries don't ask me why that's science ants are particularly pesky pesty whatever but if you pour boiling water repeatedly down their holes if you can find their holes they will eventually decease another great way to get rid of ants is to use cornmeal you basically pour little pockets of cornmeal all over your garden and the idea is that the ants will carry that cornmeal back to the nest they'll eat it and then their stomachs will explode which sounds really gross and awful but they deserve it they're the worst and speaking of ants here's another funny way that dyslexia has really screwed up my life so I recently went to the restaurant supply store to buy in bulk a bunch of things that could potentially help me get rid of pests in my garden cinnamon powder and bulk garlic powder and bulk my mind played tricks on me and I thought I needed to buy a bunch of corn starch when really I needed to buy a bunch of cornmeal so if you Gentle reader have any ideas about how I can use 50 lbs of cornstarch to my benefit aside from opening a Play-Doh Factory I would love to hear your ideas please leave them in the comments below planting Mint or oregano or other things in the mint family are great way to deter pests that rely on their sense of smell to return to the same spot to eat a bunch of stuff so like ants hate mint hate oregano hate citrus peels hate cucumber peels anything that smells strongly enough that they might get lost on their way back to their hole I'm generally an opponent not a proponent of buying any extra random stuff we need for the garden because most of the stuff we actually need we can either grow or find ourselves cheap for free without ever having to leave our homesteads which ultimately is the goal let's be honest however there are a few things that we can use like dious Earth which is probably the most misunderstood organic chemical we could possibly have on our Homestead so let's just talk about it really quick dious Earth is a naturally occurring crystalline powder that will help us to discourage any pest that has an exoskeleton and by that I mean any insect that has a hard shell on the outside diet Tous Earth is relatively inexpensive and it is really easy to just sprinkle around our plants that are having lot of pest pressure but it will only work when it's dry I've heard a lot of baloney about people using dious Earth to be ingested to actually kill parasites and things like that and while I would love to believe in the potential benefits of doing that the way that I understand dious Earth to actually work is that you need the crystals to be super dry so that when the creepy cwy walks over it it basically dissolves their outer shell or pokes a whole bunch of holes into their armor and then they die I rattled off a lot of different random lists and other things in this video and if you want to see those actually laid out in a more logical rational way check out my Squarespace website anaval trades.com as a total Tech Le eight myself Squarespace has been a fantastic resource throughout the last 12 years where I've learned how to go from a total City Slicker City dweller to an organic farmer who's trying to do all this myself doing the absolute best that I can and Squarespace has provided a beautiful artist design template for me to easily drag and drop everything I want to share with the world into and then it shares it with the world Squarespace makes it super easy for me to host my online store where I have merchandise project plans and also online courses that you can sign up for and learn alongside me as well if you yourself are interested in starting a website of your own if you have an idea that you want to share with the world World some photo galleries you want to share with potential clients an online store that you want to launch check out Squarespace and when you are ready to launch go to squarespace.com anaval trades for a 10% discount I also happen to be writing a book on time and priority management and making Big Dreams happen when we have limited time limited resources and limited Focus energy capacity all those things if you want to learn more about that book project or even join our online cohort where we're going to be teaching these things in real time at I read the book check out my website again annabal trades.com and you can find it all there woo all right at the end of the day our best defense against pests in our garden is to have healthy soil this my friends is the most beautiful melum layer that we can nerly talk about in another video but this is a massive sign of massively good things in the garden when we have healthy soil we have plants that that have healthy root systems that can have access to all the nutrients minerals etc etc that they need when we have healthy plants with healthy root systems their plant matter themselves are actually going to have healthy doubling power so if an insect or other pest does take a Munch or two out of the plant itself it's really no problem to the plant because it can fix itself or heal itself healthy soil though is kind of the long game approach and in this video we talked about a lot of the short game approaches if you do however want to improve your soil over time check out this video where we talk about just how we've done that Transforming Our absolute garbage clay soil here in Tennessee into the fertile Jurassic Park growing medium that we currently have I will see you in that video thanks so much for being here cheers [Music]

Channel: Anne of All Trades

Views: 101,456

Keywords: anne of all trades, gardening, garden pests, lazy gardening, garden pest control, gardening tips, permaculture, garden pest tips, garden bugs, garden slugs, garden snails, homesteading, no til garden, gardening pest control, nashville garden, tennessee gardening, zone 7b gardening

Id: hIqvqmuj4XI

Length: 26min 25sec (1585 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024