Looking out on your small garden you find the tomatoes ripening and the squash flowers blooming beautifully. On closer inspection you also find pests. There are many different types of garden-variety pests to contend with, most are quite common and also thankfully quite controllable. Though there are many chemically induced solutions to rid your garden of pests, you’d enjoy eating your tomatoes much more knowing you treated them organically.

There is a strategy that is both pleasing to the eye and organic and it works wonderfully for pest control. This particular pest control begins when you plant your garden. When preparing the soil for your garden simply plant a row of marigolds around the perimeter. Apparently what is pleasing to a human’s eye is obviously distressful to the taste buds of an army of munching aliens that planned an invasion of your garden.

Once they have invaded there are a few simple ways to manage pests with out using harsh chemicals. One very simple way to rid your garden of pests is to keep a spray bottle filled with equal parts mild dishwashing detergent and water handy to soak any onset of pests you might find. There is also a method that is a time consuming but effective way to remove larger pests such as caterpillars, put on gloves and start picking them off one by one. Collecting them and sending them to the local elementary school for observation is humane all the way around. So when you have to consider a way to rid your flower or vegetable garden of pesky pests remember the safer alternatives to chemicals.