An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When it comes to garden pests, the work up front to prevent them is a lot easier than trying to get rid of them once they arrive. Fall is the perfect time to take some preventative measures to reduce pests in your spring garden.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When it comes to garden pests, the work up front to prevent them is a lot easier than trying to get rid of them once they arrive. Fall is the perfect time to take some preventative measures to reduce pests in your spring garden.
Certain garden tasks that you attend to in the fall can change your chances of a pest infestation next season. These are the top chores to mark off your list:
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- Remove dead or diseased plants. Get rid of all the plants after you harvest to prevent pests from using them as overwinter shelter. Remove diseased plants too, to prevent the diseases from carrying over in the soil. Remember not to add diseased plants to your compost bin!
- Weed. Once all your garden plants are gone, the weeds may be all that remain. Insects and other, furrier pests will seek refuge in the remaining plants and live there over the winter. Pull the weeds now and leave the pests out in the cold.
- Till the soil. Some pests burrow or lay eggs in soil to stay warm through winter. Give the soil a good tilling to break up their would-be habitats.
- Plan the next garden. Crop rotation is a key to reducing future pest damage. Plants in the same family offer suffer at the hands of the same pests, so be sure not to plant the same crop in the same spot without at least a year’s break in-between.
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