A gardener’s first step into their future garden is the planting of seedlings.
Keeping pests away from sensitive seedlings is crucial, but without the correct equipment and information, it can be challenging.
These four simple methods will help ensure that your seedlings have the best chance of flourishing and bearing wonderful produce by protecting them from bothersome pests!
How insects can affect seedlings
Early in the growing season, immature plants known as seedlings are more vulnerable to pests because they haven’t had time to develop the natural defenses of more established plants. Additionally, because of their smaller size and softer leaves, pests like aphids, spider mites, whiteflies, thrips, and caterpillars find them easy targets.
If you’re a gardener, you’ve probably already felt the annoyance of losing your precious little seedlings windy weather, bugs, or root rot. While the latter two problems can be mitigated by selecting high-quality seedlings, pests can appear out of nowhere.
Tips for keeping seedlings safe from insects
Here are a few useful tips for safeguarding those seedlings.
- Use a row cover or cloche to protect them. This is a rather easy and affordable solution that will protect your seedlings from frost and pests. If there isn’t a decent garden supply store close by, search online for some good options for row coverings. You may even make your own garden cloches with items like plastic cups, wire trash baskets, and even upside-down milk cartons with the tops chopped off.
- Apply repellents to the young plants’ base. Because slugs are attracted to the smell of hops, a beer trap can be used to catch them, but there are also commercial repellents that work well. Diatomaceous earth and cayenne pepper are also useful for other crawling pests that could find their way into seedling stems. To safeguard their seedlings, some gardeners apply deterrents with strong scents, such as garlic oil.
- For plants that repel insects, think about companion planting. These beneficial plants include nasturtiums, catnip, dill, fennel, coriander, and marigolds. These companion plants have a built-in pest deterrent. To find out which plants go well together, see my comprehensive companion plant guide. In addition to keeping other useful plants in your garden, this pest-repelling strategy offers a double dividend.
- Apply homemade stem protectors. Among the worst pests for seedlings are cutworms. They can swiftly destroy seedlings by feeding on their fragile stems. Using cardboard slug collars or toilet paper rolls are other ways to keep cutworms at bay. Ace bandages wrapped around the stems or toothpicks positioned next to the stems can also be helpful in controlling this issue. Once a plant reaches a slightly more established stage, squash vine borers can also be controlled with this strategy.
Healthy seedlings
Even though all of these techniques work well to deter pests, having healthy plants is still one of the most crucial safeguards. In fact, a lot of pests are drawn to unhealthy plants.
So, how can you offer your plants a significant advantage over pests before they show up?
This entails regular, but moderate, watering, plant-appropriate soil, adequate sun exposure, and soil that drains properly.
In order to support healthy plant growth, you can also incorporate organic matter into the soil. Read my complete post on improving the soil in your garden. To keep your young plants developing and eventually producing, combine the preceding preventive techniques with these techniques for healthy young plants and seedlings.
See my selection of useful articles if you’re thinking of starting a garden this spring to keep yourself on the right track!
