CONTROLLING INSECT PESTS (Vegetable Gardening)

To many people anything In the garden that crawls or flies and is smaller than a chipmunk or a sparrow can be classified as an insect. In fact, a lot of the creatures that may bug your vegetable plants are not insects at all — mites, slugs, snails, nematodes, sowbugs, and symphylans among them. Another popular misconception is that insects and similar creatures are harmful or unnecessary and have no place in the garden. Again, it isn’t true. While some insects are destructive, many are perfectly harmless. A lot of them are actually important to the healthy development of your garden crop, some because they perform a specific service by keeping down other pests that do harm your crop, and some because they pollinate the plants. When you set out to control harmful pests, it’s important to realize that indiscriminate controls may destroy the good as well as the bad; the useful creatures as well as the harmful ones.
Controlling the insect pests that attack your vegetable garden can be a challenge; the method you choose for controlling them can also be controversial. Many gardeners rely on chemical insecticides to do away with the enemy that’s competing for the crop. Some people, however, object to the use of chemicals because they believe that the chemicals may remain on the plant and harm the person who eats it or that they may harm the environment. These gardeners prefer to rely on organic, or nonchemical, means of control. There may also be times when it’s better not to use a chemical control even if you have no personal objection to it — if you catch a caterpillar attack in the early stages, for example, it can be easier to pick off the offenders by hand than to mix up a whole batch of insecticide. This topic discusses the most effective means of control — both chemical and organic — for the pest problems you’re most likely to encounter.