Ecological Pest Control

If you want to enjoy your garden for a long time without resorting to aggressive chemicals, there's a lot you can do!

It's widely known that cats (when not overfed) help keep mice, rats, and other vermin away from your home and yard. However, many people aren't aware that you can also set up nesting aids and shelters for insectivorous birds like wrens, flycatchers, robins, and thrushes in your garden. This can provide excellent protection from bothersome insects throughout the summer.

Swallows nesting on your roof can devour hundreds of flies and mosquitoes; a simple board placed below their nest on the house wall will protect against droppings. A thorny hedge of roses or blackberries not only provides wrens with ample food in the form of caterpillars, larvae, and insects but also offers necessary protection from house cats.

Ultimately, nature has arranged things so that a natural balance of healthy plants and animals ensures that appropriate predators always establish themselves when one species proliferates. By focusing on diversity and creating habitats in your garden, you can do a lot to keep pests in check or prevent them from becoming an issue in the first place.

Anyone who has seen what slugs can do to a well-tended garden overnight knows how crucial it is to keep them under control. This can be achieved by collecting them, using slug fences, beer traps, and slug traps to prevent them from entering the garden and devouring your tender plants.

Ants undoubtedly have their place and purpose in nature, but they can be quite bothersome when they appear indoors or build nests in gardens and under patios, thus undermining your yard.

To keep ants out of your house, you can lay a barrier of chalk or lime powder around the entire house; ants won't cross it. It's also worth trying to deter ants with cloves, chili, lemon peels, or lavender, as they dislike strong-smelling substances.