Garden soil is the ideal home for several types of insects like bugs, ants, and especially cutworms. How to kill bugs in soil effectively is a question that any home gardeners has find it struggling to answer.
To help you with that question, this article will shed light on several ways to get rid of bugs in your garden projects. Scroll down for more effective remedies for pests in soil.
How to Kill Bugs in Soil
There are several types of methods to kill bugs in soil. In this article, we will mention the five most-effective ways to get rid of pests. We hope that you will find the most beneficial methods to save your indoor gardens from soil bugs.
Kill bugs manually
If you own a small vegetable garden, kill houseplant bugs manually is the traditional and best cost-effective method of all time. The downside of this method is that it requires an adequate amount of leisure time and patience for the best result. On the other hand, this following method will help you get rid of both cutworms, wireworms, root maggots, gnat larvae and ants.
To kill bugs manually, you will need:
- Flashlight
- Carrots
- Beneficial nematodes
- Yellow sticky cards
Now, it’s time to remove all those harmful houseplant insects in your garden soil:
- The best time to remove cutworms is at night, where they are active the most. You can use a flashlight to spot brown cutworms that are chewing your seedling stems. Remove them by hand and kill them immediately.
- Wireworm larvae can be caught by hand. Besides, you can use a carrot to entice wireworm. Bury a carrot in the soil for two or three days and replace it regularly to catch wireworms.
- Beneficial insects like nematodes can be used to attack root maggots which attacks your plant roots. You can mix it with water and spray directly on garden soil for the best effect of pest controls.
- Yellow sticky trap can capture flying creatures like adult fungus gnats, fruit flies, black flies. You should cut the card into small square pieces and place them on top of the soil.
- Other common houseplant pests in a container garden like black bugs, flea beetles, and Japanese beetles can stick on the lower leaf surfaces, upper leaf surfaces or undersides of leaves and can be captured by hand.
Using chemical treatments
For larger gardens, kill bugs by hand is not a practical solution. You can use chemical insecticides to eliminate common houseplant insects such as sucking plant sap insects in soil. I recommend Bacillus thuringiensis as they can kill eggs of flying insects like fungus gnat larvae, tiny white bugs.
You will need:
- Chemical pesticides such as Spinosad or Bacillus thuringiensis
- Protective clothing (long pants and long-sleeved shirts, gloves, and masks)
- A garden sprayer
Steps to kill bugs in soil with chemical products
- You should study the instruction on your product for the type of garden pests you want to remove.
- Follow label instruction to dilute the chemical compounds with the right ratio of water.
- Spray your entire garden with the dilution of insecticide. You should not apply insecticide on a hot and sunny day.
Home remedies for bugs killers
Use Hydrogen Peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is a popular antiseptic products used in medical treatments. However, not many people know that it can also be used as a nontoxic bugs killer in organic gardens before planting. With its disinfect property, hydrogen peroxide can kill microbial insects.
You will need: 3-percent hydrogen peroxide, and a sprayer
Here is the detailed guide
- Pour the hydrogen peroxide into a sprayer. You can dilute the solution by adding the same amount of water into it.
- Spray the solution on the soil surface, especially the planting hole.
- Spray the whole plant with the peroxide solution once per day for the best effect.
Use garlic, ginger and hot peppers
Three popular ingredients in the kitchen, garlic, ginger, and hot peppers, can kill beetles, aphids, and more houseplant pests. This mixture is an organic pest control that can lower the pest infestation. And you can have it right at your home.
Here is the needed things:
- Fresh hot peppers
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Soap
- A sprayer
- A soft cloth and a big container
Six simple steps for a powerful organic pesticide
- Cleanse ginger and crush it until smooth
- Remove garlic outer layers and crush it with a blender
- Mash peppers into the container and add a little water into it
- Mix soap, garlic, ginger, and peppers all together
- Let the mixture sit overnight with a loose cover
- Strain the mixture with a cloth and add it into the sprayer
You can spray the mixture onto entire plant and soil once a day to kill indoor plant pests naturally. The best time to apply this organic insect killer is in the late afternoon when the sun is down, and bugs come out.
Use insecticidal soap
Insecticidal soap spray can be used in flower gardening and vertical gardening to kill spider mite, mites whiteflies. You can make this soap spray by mixing any types of oil extract with soapy water.
Another effective pest control is using neem oil, a horticultural oil from India. You can mix oil with rubbing alcohol and water for powerful oil sprays.
Prevention treatments
Other prevention treatments can be taken to kill pests in the soil of houseplants. They are the easy garden care that you should do daily to diminish the invasion of bugs in plant soil.
- Sterile potting soil is the cause of bug invasion. Thus, strengthen the soil is the key to pest control.
- You should limit the soil disturbance as it will lose the surface of the houseplants soil and can lead to severe erosion.
- Using compost is a great way to fertilize the soil. You can strengthen the power of soil by adding green compost every spring, or adding compost in your potting mix.
- Mulch is another additional element that can enhance the fertility of your plants soil. It will keep the moisture and lower the risk of erosion.
- Crop rotation is a must to keep the bugs on the run. You should change the beds and environment frequently to kill unadaptable bugs.
- You should also take good care of your garden. Watering covering crops, cleaning up falling leaves, and searching for bugs daily are the common tasks that should be performed.
Conclusion
Learning how to kill bugs in soil of indoor plants is a process of taking several steps. You should combine those methods for the best effect of bug-killing. Finally, we hope that our writing today can solve your queries for removing bugs in garden soil. Thank you for reading!