The Garden Year with Integrated Pest Management [IPM]

There's more to organic pest control than sprays
Start thinking inside the four boxes of Integrated Pest Management. The four kinds of pest controls are:
Biological: Natural predators that will rid your garden of trouble-makers. What eats your pests? Have rodents? Cats are a natural predator. Have aphids? Ladybugs are a natural predator. Mosquitoes are killed by a bacteria abbreviated as Bt.
Cultural: Keep it clean, so there are fewer places for the bad guys to hide. For instance, orchard sanitation (the fancy term for picking up rotting fruit and dead leaves) deprives many pests of homes. Let them keep on moving, looking for another place to live.
Chemical: Here's where the sprays come in. Here's where Integrated Pest Management and organic gardening part ways. Both systems advocate using naturally derived pesticides when nothing else works. Integrated Pest Management takes it one step further and suggests conventional chemicals as a last step. See? So many more options for you, besides a can of spray.
Use the word PAMS when you work in your garden
Stay on the Integrated Pest Management track throughout the garden year when you remember the acronym PAMS:


