Effective Barriers Against Common Garden Insects
By The National Gardening Association, Bob Beckstrom, Karan Davis Cutler, Kathleen Fisher, Phillip Giroux, Judy Glattstein, Mike MacCaskey, Bill Marken, Charlie Nardozzi, Sally Roth, Marcia Tatroe, Lance Walheim, and Ann Whitman from Gardening All-in-One For Dummies
If you find a troublesome insect invading your garden, don’t make insecticides your first response. Pests can’t damage your plants if they can’t get to them. Block their access with simple, but effective barriers around your plants, such as the following:
Copper bands: Copper has the unique ability to repel slugs and snails. Their slimy coatings react chemically with copper, generating a toxic reaction — similar to an electric current — that sends them elsewhere. Use copper sheet metal to fashion permanent edging around your garden beds or staple copper-backed paper (available from garden centers) to the sides of wooden planter beds.
Dust barriers: You can repel some insects with a barrier of a sharp-particle dust, such as diatomaceous earth (DE), or wood ashes. Dusts work best when dry, and you have to reapply them after a rain.
Row covers: Developed to raise the temperature around plants and extend the growing season, these lightweight air- and water-permeable fabrics can also keep plants relatively safe from insect pests. Cover your plants early in the season, or the insects will have a chance to set up housekeeping in the garden and thrive under the protective covering. Remove the covers from plants, such as squash, that depend on insects for pollination when the plants bloom.
Cutworm collars: Make cutworm collars from empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls cut into 2-inch cylinders, or from strips of newspaper that encircle the stem completely, but not tightly, and extend 1 inch into the soil. Place the collars around transplants when you put them in the ground.
Sticky coatings: Halt insects in their tracks by applying a sticky coating to traps that attract specific insects. Make your own by mixing equal parts mineral oil or petroleum jelly and liquid dish soap, or purchase sticky substances at local hardware stores or garden centers. To make cleanup easier, cover the lure with plastic wrap before applying the sticky coating.
Gardening Glossary
annuals
Plants that complete their entire life cycle within one growing season. The plant germinates from seed, grows and blooms, and then produces seed and dies.
Gardening Glossary
biennials
A plant that take two growing seasons to complete its life cycle. It germinates and grows leaves and stems in the first year; produces flowers and fruit (seed) in the second, and then dies.
Gardening Glossary
bolt
When a plant flowers or produces seed prematurely.
Gardening Glossary
cold frame
A wooden or concrete block box in which you can grow plants or hold dormant during the cold winter months.
Gardening Glossary
cole crops
A family of vegetables, including broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts. They thrive in cooler weather.
Gardening Glossary
complete fertilizer
Any fertilizer that contains all three of the primary nutrients, N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium). Phrase is based on regulations governing the fertilizer industry. Does not mean that the fertilizer literally contains everything a plant needs to thrive.
Gardening Glossary
deadheading
The practice of pinching or cutting off spent flowers
Gardening Glossary
evaporative-pad humidifier
A humidifier in which fans blow across a moisture-laden pad that sits in a reservoir of water.
Gardening Glossary
harden off
The process of acclimating plants grown indoors gradually to the brighter light and cooler temperatures of the outside world.
Gardening Glossary
hardiness
The ability of a plant to survive is called its hardiness.
Gardening Glossary
humus
A stable end product of organic-matter decomposition that's believed to increase microbial activity in soil, improve soil structure, and enhance the root development of plants.
Gardening Glossary
Bacillus thuringiensis Bt
An effective bacteria that attacks only the larvae of caterpillar family insects. It is safe to other insects, animals, and humans.
Gardening Glossary
macronutrients
Mineral nutrients that plants need in the largest quantities: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur.
Gardening Glossary
mulch
Organic or inorganic material placed over the surface of soil, usually directly over the root zone of growing plants. Used to conserve moisture, kill weed seedlings, modify soil temperature, provide attractive covering to garden beds.
Gardening Glossary
organic matter
Once-living stuff like compost, sawdust, animal manure, ground bark, grass clippings, and leaf mold (composted tree leaves). Used to enrich soil and improve soil texture.
Gardening Glossary
perennials
Any plant with a life cycle of three or more years. Herbaceous (non-woody) perennials include flowering plants and herbs, mainly. Woody perennials include trees and shrubs. Longevity depends on the plant and growing conditions.
Gardening Glossary
pH
The measure of soil's acidity. Soil with low pH means it's too acidic; soil with high pH means it's alkaline. Most plants grow best in soil with a pH value between 6.5 and 7.2. Neutral soils measure 7.
Gardening Glossary
photosynthesis
The process through which plants take nutrients from the air and from the water in the soil to produce sugars that fuels the plant's growth.
Gardening Glossary
primary nutrients
Nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium are the three nutrients plants need in the largest quantities.
Gardening Glossary
root crops
Plants with edible underground roots such as onions, carrots, beets, potatoes, turnips. Most root crops are cold-weather crops.
Gardening Glossary
self-blanching
A type of cauliflower with leaves that naturally curl over the head and exclude light. Requires cool temperatures for leaves to curl effectively.
Gardening Glossary
sets
Small onion bulbs, about 1/2-inch wide, that were started from seed the previous year. Grow onion sets with the pointy end up.
Gardening Glossary
side-dressing
The act of adding a small amount of fertilizer around or "on the side" of plants after they're growing.
Gardening Glossary
succession planting
Planting small, 2-to-4-foot patches of plants every two weeks throughout the growing season so that you can harvest a crop over an extended period of time.
Gardening Glossary
thinning
The act of cutting the least robust seedlings in your garden to give the healthier plants more room to grow.
Gardening Glossary
vining crops
Crops that grow on vines, such as cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and winter squash. They usually require support (staking, trellising, etc.) to keep them off the ground.
