Getting Rid Of Insects In Your Garden
As many new gardeners quickly discover, there are two kinds of insects which you may find in your garden.
The first are chewing insects that eat holes in the leaves of your plants. These pests include caterpillars, grasshoppers, beetles, snails, slugs, and earwigs. The second type is sucking insects that feed on your garden by pushing their mouths into the plant tissue and sucking out the juices. This type of insect includes aphids, scales, while flies, and mites.
You may assume that sucking insects are tiny (like aphids, for example) and chewing insects large (like caterpillars), but this is not always true. There are many examples of small chewing insects and large sucking bugs.
If you find leaves on your plants that are rolled and twisted out of their normal shape, you can expect to find caterpillars. Some species of caterpillar roll the leaves, and when you unroll the leaf you can expect to find a small green caterpillar inside. Some types of aphids also hide inside rolled leaves.
If you are not sure if it is an aphid, look for a soft, nearly transparent body, large abdomen, and six legs.
If the leaves of your plants develop transparent sections or trails, leaf miner has probably invaded your garden. This insect tunnels inside the leaves, just under the surface. If you hold a leaf to the light, you will be able to see the trails. On the other hand, if the trails are on the top of the leaf, you probably have slugs.
Depending on the type of insect, you may find bugs on the stems, on the flowers, on the leaves, or hiding underneath the leaves. Be sure to look over all parts of your plants carefully if you suspect insect or pests damage.
Insects can hide from view, making it hard to figure out what is damaging your plants. Of course, if you want to make your plants healthy again, you will need to find the bugs and get rid of them.
There are many kinds of garden pests that attack your plant in different ways. Many of these are difficult to get rid of once you have them. If you want to get rid of pests like these, you will need to blast your plants with a heavy spray of water. They can hide in unexpected places on your plants, so use a very strong spray of water to get them all.
For some bugs, including aphids, you will need to treat the plant with chemicals as well.
