Sustainable Gardening

Practical answers from nature-loving garden gurus

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Bugs & Diseases

It's essential in sustainable to first, to prevent disease and harmful insects, and second, to respond to them in a way that makes sense for the health of your garden, your environment and your family. Not to mention reducing the amount of time you have to spend dealing with pests (the absolute least fun thing to do in the garden!) And sustainable gardeners DO tolerate a bit of insect "damage" — it's a natural part of the landscape and proof we're helping to feed our wildlife.

Start Here

• Pests: Introduction and Prevention
• Pests: Physical and Biological Controls
• Pests: Organic Controls

More Pest Articles on this Site

• The Truth about Organic Pesticides
• Contributor Joe Lamp'l explains Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
• How to Deal with Mosquitos
• Just Say No to Poisons is Ginny Stibolt's reaction to insecticides.

Stories from Garden Blogs

• Spray Now! was my first blog post about pesticides and it elicited some great comments from our readers, including some experts.
• In When Gurus Go Bad, an expert debunks the quacks and names names.
• When it's Man against Caterpillars (tent caterpillars)
• And here's my own rant about a very successful guru/quack.
• Pesticide users would definitely rather not read this.
• This year tiger mosquitoes are tormenting gardeners and they're striking back.

More Information in Print

• Natural Disease Control by the folks at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
• The Truth about Organic Gardening by Jeff Gillman
• The Truth about Garden Remedies by Jeff Gillman
• Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control by Ellis and Bradley

More Information Online

• Beyond Pesticides.org
• National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns
• Cornell University's consumer site for biocontrols. and their plant clinic.
• University of Maryland's Plant Diagnostic site.
• Penn State's Pesticide Education Program
• Extension Toxicology Network (multi-state)
• National Pesticide Information Center
• Pesticide Action Network North America
• Environment and Human Health
• Organic Gardening Magazine's information about Pests
• Organic Gardening Magazine's information about Diseases.

Japanese beetle grub photo credit. Tent caterpillar photo credit.