Holes in your Plants this Spring? Here’s What You Need to Know.
Seeing holes in your plants this Spring? It’s most likely snails, slugs, or caterpillars. Honestly, this time of year, it’s probably all three. Good news: there are two simple tricks we use to get rid of them.
GENERAL THOUGHTS ON PEST CONTROL
At Monarch we use pest control products sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. We only use organic pest control products.
As a general rule, we recommend doing the following to reduce pest pressure in the first place:
Add fresh compost every three months to the garden - healthy plants are strong plants. Strong plants are far less likely to attract pests and are well adapted to fight them on their own with little help from us.
Plant plenty of herbs and flowers in the garden. These attract the good bugs to the garden and repel the bad ones.
Keep the garden beds clean, removing all debris from the soil level. Decomposing plant matter is highly attractive to bugs.
Prune plants regularly. This increases airflow and reduces dampness and humidity in the garden (certain pests love a damp/humid home). Pruning also makes plants healthier and stronger (better equipped to fight pest pressure).
Prune all low-lying foliage - especially if it’s sitting on the soil. Low-lying foliage acts as an easy on-ramp for bugs.
For the most part, this system works in our gardens 90% of the time. However - there are times when we have to step in with some additional support and treat specific pests with a product.
As nurse (who also happens to own a garden company), I see pest control the exact same way I think of many health-related issues.
A healthy lifestyle and healthy habits create the foundation of health and wellness. Adding compost regularly, increasing diversity in the garden, attracting pollinators and bugs that eat the bad bugs, repelling destructive bugs, pruning, and tending does the same thing for the garden as exercising regularly, eating healthy foods, managing stress, having healthy relationships, and getting regular health check-ups do for our physical health.
But sometimes, even if we’re doing all the right things, our body still gets sick.
So does the garden.
There are times when you will have to take medication to get well, and there are times when we need to step in and apply a product to the garden to add extra support.
However, if we’ve created a healthy eco-system in the garden, treating for pests should be few and far between. It should not be the norm.
SLUGS AND SNAILS
Slugs and snails come out in full force during the spring months. It’s actually incredible how much damage one snail or slug can do in a couple days! To treat, we use Sluggo. If you’ve never used Sluggo before, it’s little white pellets you sprinkle on your soil.
Cautions:
Use sparingly. We only use Sluggo once every six weeks in gardens (if it’s needed). Thankfully one treatment is usually enough. We have a love/hate relationship with this product. Yes, it stops snails and slugs in their tracks (see what I did there), but it also can have a negative effect on earthworms in your soil.
Really make sure you only apply Sluggo to the soil. Don’t go tossing it in the garden all willy-nilly. If it lands on your plant’s leaves and gets wet? It’s glued to the leaves. You can actually do more damage to your plants by gluing Sluggo to the leaves than the snails were doing in the first place.
Look at the weather forecast before applying. Ideally apply it when there’s not a chance of rain for a few days. Rain (or too much water) can cause the pellets to swell and look moldy. If this happens, I try to remove as many as possible and reapply when the beds have dried out.
CATERPILLARS
Caterpillars also love the garden in the spring! A little too much. To treat, we use Monterey B.T. Using this one is a little more involved than Sluggo. Here’s how we use it:
In a sprayer, we mix BT according to instructions on the bottle. If you have a smaller garden, you can even buy BT premixed in a spray bottle.
We have found this schedule to work best: Treat every three days for three treatments total.
Cautions:
Check the weather forecast (for the next ten days!) before applying. Ideally you want to start the treatment when there isn’t much rain in the upcoming forecast.
Only treat in the late evening when the sun is completely off the plants. Sunlight can degrade the product (rendering it useless). Additionally, BT can scorch your plants if you treat when the sun is out.
Reapply every third evening. We like to do three treatments total. This seems to have the best effect on living caterpillars and newly hatched caterpillars over the 10 day treatment window.
In order for the product to work, the caterpillars have to ingest the BT. This means you only need to spray the product on the foliage of your plants - not the soil.
We spray every inch of the plant when applying- the base and both sides of the leaves.
Do NOT spray on your fennel, parsley, dill, rue, milkweed, or ANY other host plant for beneficial caterpillars. Be very careful around these plants when applying! Unfortunately this product is not selective for which types of caterpillars it kills!
HELPFUL LINKS
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Check out our Amazon Storefront for products we love in the garden and other fun items we use to bring the garden to our table!
Order your plants and compost for delivery! Spring Plant Order
Want seasonal recipes and ideas for how to make the garden a part of your everyday life? Check out Monarch Living!
Wanting a garden of your very own? Want to add more garden beds? We'd love to help you create your dream garden space. Click HERE to start the process.
Looking for ongoing help taking care of your vegetable garden? Check out what Monarch Garden Company Maintenance has to offer (it's a lot)!
Need garden coaching? Wanting to plant something new? Things not going great in your garden? Want some help troubleshooting? Learn more about our Garden Coaching and get on the schedule!
