Garden Hacks: 10 Simple Pest Control Tips

Pests are a normal part of gardening, and their damage can undo months of work fast. A balanced ecosystem is the goal. Preventing pests organically is part of building that balance, but it’s not always enough on its own. This is what I do in my garden when pests create problems, plus a couple I’ve swapped out for something that works better or fits how I want to garden now.

What’s the Best Way to Deal With Pill Bugs and Slugs in Strawberries?

Rollie pollies, pill bugs, potato bugs, whatever you call them, and slugs love homegrown strawberries almost as much as I do. I used to recommend lifting strawberries off the ground with plastic supports, and that still works if you want to go that route. I’ve moved away from it since I don’t love adding more plastic to my garden.

These days I mulch under the plants with straw, so the fruit isn’t sitting directly on bare soil, and I sprinkle Garden Safe Slug & Snail Bait Granules around the patch when pest pressure gets bad. Between the two, that keeps most of the damage down.

If you’d rather trap and remove pill bugs than use bait, my full post on keeping pill bugs from destroying your garden covers other organic methods, including the orange trick I use elsewhere in the garden.

How Do You Get Rid of Rats in the Garden?

Rats can destroy months of garden growth in minutes. I’ve come out to find brassicas chewed to a nub and melons destroyed.

When I find rat sign, trapping is still the most effective method I’ve found. A few things that make it work:

• Use a trap sized for rats. A mousetrap won’t kill a rat.
• Wear disposable gloves when handling traps so your scent doesn’t put the rat off.
• Place traps everywhere you’ve seen droppings or damage.
• Rats travel along walls and fences, so set traps along edges and corners, angled at 90 degrees with the bait side toward the wall.
• Keep resetting the trap until it stops catching anything.
• Peanut butter works well as bait.

How Do You Keep Birds and Bunnies From Eating Garden Plants?

Birds and bunnies can strip a bed fast, and barrier methods work best for both. My go-to now is a cheap wire trash can from the dollar store, set right over a plant. I also use garden cloches for larger plants and areas.

Cloches are more effective against birds than bunnies in my experience. If bunnies are the bigger problem in your garden, you may need something sturdier or a fenced-off area instead.

If birds are going after seeds you just planted rather than established plants I cover the tulle trick I use for that in my Garden Hacks: 9 Simple Tips post.

How Do You Get Rid of Fruit Flies in the House?

Homegrown citrus and produce are wonderful until they bring fruit flies into the house with them. I use two traps together now: a Zevo Flying Insect Trap for Fruit Flies & Gnats and a TERRO Fruit Fly Trap 4-Pack. Staying ahead of them keeps populations from getting out of control. A small fruit fly issue turns into a big one fast once they start reproducing indoors.

What’s the Best Way to Deal With Problem Ants?

Ants are often pollinators, and outdoors they usually aren’t a direct problem on their own. But when they’re farming aphids, tending and protecting them in exchange for the honeydew aphids produce that creates a problem. If you’re seeing a lot of ants and a lot of aphids in the same spot, that’s usually what’s going on, and you may want to treat for the ants.

That’s exactly what happened on my watermelons. The plants were struggling, and I couldn’t figure out why until I noticed the ants and aphids together. I treated for the ants, and once they were gone, the beneficial insects in my garden took care of the aphids on their own. The watermelons took off right after.

For ants outdoors, I use TERRO Outdoor Liquid Ant Bait Stakes, which contain borax that disrupts an ant’s digestion. Push the stakes into the ground where ants are active and wait. A swarm of ants on the stake is actually a good sign, it means it’s working. The foraging ants carry the bait back to the colony, and it spreads from there.

For ants indoors the indoor ant baits work the same way, placed wherever you’re seeing ant activity in the house.

How Do You Keep the Fly Population Under Control?

Composting and keeping chickens are both good for the garden, but both can bring flies. I still use disposable fly traps when the population gets out of hand. They work especially well hung near a chicken coop. Cut one open, add water to activate it, and hang it at least 20 feet from anywhere people spend time, the smell is strong on purpose, that’s what draws flies in. Once a trap fills up, close it, toss it, and hang a fresh one if flies are still a problem. Sometimes, when it’s hot, the water dries out, and rather than throwing it away, I refill the water.

How Do You Tell Beneficial Insects From Harmful Ones?

I recognize a lot of the beneficial and harmful bugs in my garden, but not all of them. Gardening organically means running into insects you don’t recognize, and it’s not always obvious which ones are helping and which ones are causing damage. The Seek app from iNaturalist makes this easy. Open the app, take a picture, and it tells you what you’re looking at.

I’ve been surprised more than once. A cockroach egg parasitoid wasp showed up in my garden and I almost stepped on it before I checked the app. Turned out she’s on my side, helping keep the roach population down, so I left her alone. This guide to identifying beneficial insect eggs also really helps knowing what is helpful and what is harmful.

Attracting beneficial insects supports pollinators and cuts down on pest problems without spraying anything. My post on building a simple insectary border has ideas that work in any size garden.

Do Yellow Sticky Traps Get Rid of Whiteflies?

Yellow sticky traps are recommended constantly for whiteflies, and I don’t recommend them anymore. They catch other insects too, not just whiteflies. The last one I used caught a butterfly and a lizard, and that was the last time I used them. If you still want to use them, replace them once they fill up and take them down once the whitefly population is under control. Don’t leave them up as a permanent fixture.

For more options for dealing with whiteflies, including timing in hot climates, read my full guide, How to Get Rid of Whiteflies.

What’s the Most Effective Mosquito Control for a Yard?

Mosquitoes show up right when the garden and the rest of the yard are worth being outside for. I started using Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech tubes this year, and they’ve made a real difference around my property. Each tube uses a sugar, yeast, and boric acid mixture that releases carbon dioxide to draw mosquitoes in. Set one in each corner of the area you want to cover; a four-tube pack handles about an acre, and replace them about once a month.

For standing water you can’t drain, like a birdbath, saucer, or rain barrel, I also use Mosquito Bits. They target the larval stage before mosquitoes ever become a problem in the air, and they’re safe to use around plants and pets.

What’s the Best Way to Get Rid of Gophers?

Gophers can kill a full-grown tree in under two days and will chew through irrigation lines without hesitation. If you see a mound of loose dirt with no visible hole, or only a slightly open one, that’s almost always a gopher, not another animal digging.

Trapping is the most effective method. My friend Zach at Arizona Worm Farm wrote a full guide covering how to find the tunnel, set the trap, and check it, since neither of us wants poison in the soil. Read 5 Steps to Get Rid of Gophers in the Garden for the complete method.

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