Take an integrated approach to pest management

Q. What are homemade alternatives to pesticides?

A. Insecticides ("bug" spray), herbicides (weed killer), and fungicides are all included in the umbrella term of pesticides. Gardeners want to eliminate or at least reduce the pests we find in and among our fruits and vegetables, flowers, shrubs and trees. How do we do this "naturally?"

We are all aware that the use of chemicals can be fraught with problems. So we turn to alternative homemade pesticides made of common ingredients that we find recipes for in books and on the Internet. But are these untested concoctions safe for us and our soil?

The University of Illinois Extension Service recommends using an integrated approach to pest management. This includes selecting and maintaining healthy plants, manually or mechanically weeding and killing pests, using commercial pesticides following the label instructions, or using living organisms that are natural enemies of the pests we want to reduce. Using these methods will reduce a garden's pest population safely.

How to choose which method will work best for the pest in your plant? Learn as much as you can about the pest before you act on it. Knowing how a pest thrives will help you decide the method of control to use. You may need to use one or more of these methods to be effective.

Start with and maintain healthy plants. Choose native plants or exotic cultivars that are resistant to common insect pests. Plant transplants or seeds at the right time of year and on the right site for sun, shade, wet or dry soils, and mature size.

Learn the proper watering and fertilizing needs of your plants. Mulch around plants with either compost or other organic matter to reduce competitive weeds and conserve water.

Pulling weeds around your healthy plants reduces the potential for disease and other pest problems. Whether by hand or by hoe, weeding is a necessary and healthy activity that is both cost and ecologically effective. Try to pull or chop flowers off weeds before they set seed as most weeds are prolific seed producers!

Here are a few manual methods to kill pests:

• Knock pests off plants and step on them, or drop them into soapy water to kill them.

• Wash them off with a strong spray from your garden hose.

• Prune off leaves or branches that are infested or diseased.

• Barrier methods can protect young plants from being eaten. Try placing "collars" from tin cans or cardboard strips around the stems. Floating row covers can be placed over plants to prevent flying insects, birds, squirrels or rabbits from eating the plants or their produce.

There are ways to use nature against nature in the form of plants, bacteria, fungi, nematodes or insects that are beneficial to the plants you have in your garden. In fact all healthy gardens should have insects!

Plant native flowering plants to provide food for beneficial insects such as lady beetles, lacewings, parasitic wasps, ground beetles, praying mantis, syrphid fly, tachinid fly, spiders and predatory mites, and other predatory bugs. You can also try companion planting, which is where you use plants that repel specific insects next to plants that those same insects enjoy. Avoid using pesticides if you use this method as they will kill both good and bad bugs.

If you do decide to use a commercial pesticide, you must first determine what kind you want to use. There are products that use either synthetic or more environmentally based substances.

You need to determine whether you want to use a product that kills pests by physical contact, which can require repeat applications, or products that are systemic to the plant. These take longer to work but also last longer, so repeat applications are not usually required.

Commercial products have been thoroughly tested and have safety procedures listed on the container in which they are sold. That label is a legal document so the application and protective gear procedures must be followed to legally and safely apply the product.

The important thing to remember is to take an integrated approach to pest management. Learn about the pests that are bothering your garden and take steps to prevent, obstruct or, when necessary, reduce their access to your plants. If you use this approach, you will be saving both money and our environment.

- Nancy Degnan

• Provided by Master Gardeners through the Master Gardener Answer Desk, Friendship Park Conservatory, Des Plaines. Call (847) 298-3502 or email northcookmg@gmail.com.