Fight Bugs Naturally! A Guide to Natural Pest Control

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With these ingenious tips from gardener and author Sharon Lovejoy, you won’t need pesticides to fight insects that munch on your plants. These cures are simple, quick, earth-friendly, and fun to make.

How to Get Rid of Ants

• Spray ant routes with apple cider vinegar to cover their invisible pheromone tracks so they can’t find their way back to foraging sites.
• Pour equal parts baking soda and powder sugar into a bowl and blend thoroughly. Transfer mixture to a cheese or salt shaker and apply directly to ant hills and trails.
• Shake diatomaceous earth into areas when the insects invade. When ants climb over it, their bodies become desiccated.

How to Get Rid of Aphids

• Many aphid and mite problems can be solved with water. A strong blast from the hose dislodges aphids and breaks off their sucking mouth parts.
• Aphids are drawn to yellow. Set a shallow yellow pan of soapy water near infested plants, and the aphids will plunge to a watery end.
• Order aphid wolves (larvae of ladybird beetles) and release them into your garden. These predators eat hundreds of aphids a day.

How to Get Rid of Grasshoppers

• Sprinkle white flour (not self-rising) on cabbage worms, loopers, and grasshoppers early in the morning when plants are covered with dew. Pests with petrify and desiccate. Rinse off the plants the next day.

How to Get Rid of Beetles

• Slip on a pair of lawn aerator sandals after a rain and dance wildly on your wet lawn to destroy grubs before they become Japanese beetles.
• Take a long-handled spatula or spoon and a bucket of warm, soapy water outside early in the morning. Look for beetle infestations on roses, peonies and other flowers. Hold the bucket below the bloom and gently whack the flower. The bugs will drop straight down into the suds.
• Purchase spined soldier bugs, a beetle's greatest enemy, from a nursery and set them on patrol in your garden.