Unfortunately, many delicious fruits and vegetables from the garden also taste good to insects, snails and other pests. At best, you make the little animals' life miserable from the outset - by growing vegetables in mixed cultures and the targeted colonization of so-called beneficial insects.
It is essential to refrain from using chemicals in the vegetable garden
leaf sap-sucking pests
Leaf juice-sucking pests, which mostly belong to the insects or arachnids, are not only found in the garden, but also on indoor plants. These unwanted companions appear particularly frequently:
- Aphids of different species
- spider mites
- Thrips or blister feet
- white flies
- Nematodes or nematodes
- cicadas
In many cases, an infestation by these pests can be prevented by not planting too densely and regularly watering with nettle or horsetail broth. Since these animals reproduce very quickly, the vegetable plants should be checked regularly and, in the event of a positive finding, action taken quickly.
feeding pests
Snails, especially the 1 to 25 centimeter long slugs, are probably the biggest terror in the vegetable patch. They appear in large numbers in damp weather, prefer to feast on young plants, tender new shoots and sweet strawberries and live hidden during the day. A good snail fence around the bed is usually the best defense, whereas the common beer traps often only seem to attract more snails. Otherwise, you can easily collect the animals in the morning under specially laid out boards and sacks.
voles and field mice
A big plague are also voles and field mice, which dig tunnels under the ground and eat roots, bulbs, tubers, seeds, young plants or bark. The animals are difficult to repel, with the best repellent gases, in the form of granules or cartridges placed in the corridors of the animals, working best. The desperate gardener's last resort is vole traps or poisoned baits.
mole cricket
The mole cricket or werere is an up to five centimeters long, brown-black insect that digs long underground passages with its shovel legs. It often raises seedlings and seedlings, which then die, and also eats roots and tubers. The animals can be caught with jars buried at ground level and caught with a nematode preparation.
Other common pests
In addition to the pests mentioned, there are a number of insects that often only cause damage to certain species or plant families, but avoid others.
To fly
These include, for example, vegetable flies, which are usually heavily specialized in certain plant groups such as the cabbage, carrot, asparagus and onion flies. The tiny leaf miners particularly like to eat leeks, lettuce, Chinese cabbage, cucumbers, rocket and basil. Very close-meshed crop protection nets laid out right at the time of sowing or planting have proven their worth.
butterflies
There are also many pests in the group of butterflies, with the large and small cabbage white being the most well-known. Both species fly from April or May, but the most dangerous for the vegetable garden is the second generation of caterpillars from July. Here, too, cultural protection nets that are laid out in good time can help.
tips
The yellow and black striped Colorado potato beetle can destroy the potato harvest. Its orange-red eggs should be crushed or removed immediately. Check the potato leaves regularly!