Many of us, as soon as we see pests or diseases in our garden, automatically look for chemical pesticide to deal with the problem. Unfortunately using chemical pesticides can cause more problems than they cure and a better way is to use an organic method. Chemical pesticides have been linked to a wide range of diseases including infertility, cancer, birth defects etc. They can also do harm to the visitors to your garden that you want to encourage such as butterflies, honey bees and ladybugs who all played their part in your garden by eating pests. The law does not require chemical pesticides to be thoroughly tested and sold for use in a home garden as those that are used by commercial food growers.

A good defense to prevent pests from thriving in your garden is to make sure you grow healthy plants as weak or sickly plants are target for pests. If you make sure you have the ideal conditions for your plants to grow and stay healthy by providing good soil and watering and fertilize them regularly you will go a long way to preventing pests from invading your garden. Natural mulches and composts should be used in preference to high nitrogen fertilizers and do not get your plants dry out all sit with their roots in water too long. Get down among your plants and use your hands or home deal with the weeds regularly inspect them spot the first signs of invasion by pets or diseases. Prune away any part of the plant that show signs of infection being careful to prune right back to the main stem and leaving a small stub can allow pets to reenter the plant.

Pests tend to target particular plant and if you clump all your plants together they will have an easy time finding them. One thing you can do is to mix different varieties of your plants together so that they do not have an easy time targeting their favorites. You should also try to encourage visitors to your garden such as lace wings and ladybugs whose larvae feed on pests. Encourage insect eating wild birds to your garden by putting out a bird bath and attract lizards and toads with a small pond.

If these natural methods of prevention should fail you will have to find out which pest is attacking your plants and use the best organic method possible to get rid of it. Some methods you can try are pepper sprays, soap sprays or the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis which kills the caterpillars of leaf eaters by preventing their digestion. Remove any weak plants as these are the ones that pests will go for first.

Although it is not as easy to use organic methods of pest control it is much more beneficial to your garden and the wildlife that visit it, as well as to you and your family to make the extra effort involved. Ensure that you have a healthy garden which will help to prevent outbreaks of disease and will not encourage pests to thrive.