Skip to main content
Home & Garden

8 ways to keep garden pests under control

Protect your precious veggies from enemy bugs, birds, rabbits, and more

A bean leaf with holes eaten by bugs Credit: Getty Images / jess311

Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed's editors. Purchases made through the links below may earn us and our publishing partners a commission.

It’s a familiar scene: You step outside to look at your garden one sunny morning, and find that your beautiful tomatoes have eaten, your broccoli leaves are full of holes, and your seedlings have disappeared altogether.

You’re not alone in your garden. Rabbits, groundhogs, squirrels, chipmunks, and hungry bugs are happy to devour your homegrown juicy vegetables and delicate flowers.

Here are eight ways to protect your plants from garden pests.

1. Know your enemy

A grasshopper peeks out from a leaf
Credit: Getty Images / imagedepotpro

Before you can treat a pest problem in your garden, you need to know what sort of critters are doing the damage.

Check your plants at least once a week for damage. Look underneath the leaves, at the stems, at the base of the stem, and at any fruits or vegetables you’re growing. If you can notice infiltration early, you’ll have a much better chance of saving the rest of your garden.

The University of Florida’s guide to insect pests can help you narrow down the suspects quickly. Finding holes in your leaves? Look for caterpillars. Are the leaves turning yellow or brown? Look for insects that pierce and suck on plants’ leaves, such as aphids, flea beetles, scale insects, spider mites, and whiteflies. Are the leaves “skeletonized,” mostly eaten with a few strips of fiber remaining? Consider caterpillars or leaf miners.

Have you found a bug and aren't sure what it is? Check out your local agricultural extension’s website for info about the pests in your region. Northern gardeners can start with the University of Minnesota’s insect ID site, which has plenty of pictures of plant-eating critters sorted by size. You can also take a look at their “What’s wrong with my plant?” page to check if your problem is insect damage or a disease.

If the bites look too big to be caused by a bug, consider a larger animal. When deer stop by, your leaves will look torn and ragged because deer don’t have upper incisors. Rabbits and groundhogs have upper and lower teeth, and make a much cleaner bite.

2. Cover up with cloth or netting

Netting over a plant
Credit: Getty Images / v_zaitsev

Netting can help keep hungry birds from eating your hard-earned fruits and vegetables.

You can stop some bugs, animals, and birds by placing a cloth or net on top of crops. The most versatile cover for your crops is floating row cover, a thin fabric usually made of spun polyester or polypropylene. It looks like packing material, but is highly effective at keeping insects, birds, and bunnies out of your garden patch.

Using floating row cover on low-growing plants like lettuce or spinach is easy. Drape the fabric over your plants—leaving enough slack for the plants to grow and push it up—and secure the edges of the fabric to the ground with rocks, bricks, boards, shovels of dirt, or whatever else you have that’s convenient.

Note that floating row cover also keeps pollinators off. If growing a fruiting vegetable, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, or squash, you need to remove the row cover when it starts flowering. It can also retain heat—up to 15 degrees warmer during the day—so be aware that plants like beans, tomatoes, and peppers can start sustaining damage at 90°F.

If growing any fruit on trees (apples, peaches, cherries), bushes (blueberries), canes (raspberries, blackberries), or the ground (strawberries), you are going to attract the attention of your ravenous local bird population. When your plants start fruiting, use bird netting to protect your crop.

Make sure to secure it to the ground, and check your nets often so that a desperate bird won't find its way inside.

3. Give them a bath

Person spraying water on a rose bush
Credit: Getty Images / NinaMalyna

A simple spray of water can often do the trick to knock pesky bugs off your leaves.

Some of the most common insect pests can be deterred by the common garden hose. Aphids, spider mites, and lace bugs can all be knocked off your plants with a stream of water, and they often don’t return. Make sure you spray the undersides of the leaves, as well as the tops. (Insects commonly shelter and lay their eggs on the bottoms of leaves, making them hard to spot.)

You can also try adding soap. Insecticidal soap sprays potassium salts of fatty acids that damage the membranes on contact. Insecticidal soap is mostly harmless, but it can cause skin and eye irritation, and it can damage some types of plants, including begonias and cucumbers. Make sure to read the instructions before you apply it. Don’t substitute dish soap, which can dissolve the waxy outer coating of the leaves.

Get the Safer Brand Insect Killing Soap at Amazon for $10

4. Bring in some friends to do your dirty work

A ladybug on a leaf
Credit: Getty Images / karandaev

Ladybugs are natural predators to some hungry bugs.

For every bug that eats plants, there’s another bug that will return the favor. Ladybugs and lacewings will eat soft-bodied insects, including aphids, scale insects, spider mites, and mealybugs.

If dealing with deer, groundhogs, or rabbits, the Michigan State University suggests that getting a dog can help. A dog any size works, so long as the dog is outside when the animals are eating at night.

5. Build the right barrier

A deer looks through a fence into a garden
Credit: Getty Images / Lux Blue

The right kind of fencing can keep deer and other larger animals away.

The best way to keep deer, rabbits, groundhogs, and other four-legged frenemies out of your garden is to build a fence. The type of fence you build will depend on whether you’re worried about deer, which jump, or rabbits and groundhogs, which dig.

White-tailed deer can jump 8 feet tall, but they can’t jump that high and clear much horizontal distance. The University of Vermont Extension suggests several fencing schemes for discouraging deer: 8 feet tall; 6 feet tall and slanting outward at a 45-degree angle; or installing two shorter fences 4 feet apart.

Cottontail rabbits can jump, but they don't dig many holes. A 2-foot-tall fence made of chicken wire or 1-inch mesh should keep them out if you bury 3 to 4 inches of fence below the surface. For jackrabbits, build a 3-foot fence with 4 inches buried.

Groundhogs and woodchucks are energetic garden destroyers. Most experts recommend building a 4-foot fence with another 1-foot buried underground, and the last 6 inches bent outward parallel to the ground in an L-shape.

If you’re thinking of building fences, take a good look around your yard. Are there places where rabbits or rats would be able to hide or nest? Consider tall grass, weeds, brush, low-growing shrubs, or piles of wood or rocks. If you do this, the rabbits may decide to skip your yard.

Using the right materials can also keep slugs at bay. You can catch slugs with a bowl of beer, but throwing out a bowl of dead slugs is an unpleasant task—and a waste of beer. Additionally, slugs need "pathways" to move around your garden, so avoid anything they can use as a "bridge."

Diatomaceous earth isn’t a poison, per se. It has tiny prickly bits that scrape slugs enough to keep them away and form a slug-proof barrier around plants. Or, consider putting a damp burlap bag or board out in your garden: The slugs will crawl underneath the dark, moist area in the night, and you can dispose of them as you wish.

Get the Harris Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth at Amazon for $13

6. Try natural animal repellents

A rabbit sits in a garden
Credit: Getty Images / DWalker44

Some natural repellents can keep animals like rabbits from nibbling on your growing fruits and vegetables.

If you have rabbits, groundhog, deer, or any other herbivore chewing up your yard, and you don’t want to put up a fence, you can try using an animal repellent. Don’t bother with alarms or flashing lights; hungry animals will ignore them once they figure out they’re not harmful.

Most animal repellents are made of rotten eggs (“putrescent whole egg solids” on the label), garlic, and sometimes capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers their heat. Spray the repellent on the leaves you want left alone. It may smell terrible for a few hours, but the aroma slowly dissipates, leaving a scent and taste that only animals can sense.

It can be hard to find a repellent approved for use on edible plants like fruits and vegetables. You can spray any stem or foliage you won’t eat. However, if squirrels have been nibbling your tomatoes, you’re out of luck. Repellents also don't last very long. Be prepared to re-apply your repellent after every rainstorm if you want animals to stay away—and be prepared to lock up your dogs if they enjoy sniffing and digging for the sources of strange new odors.

Get the Liquid Fence Animal Repellent at Amazon for $23

7. Make your garden an unpleasant place to be

A cat prowls around a garden
Credit: Getty Images / Nils Jacobi

Cats don't always know the difference between your garden bed and their litter box.

Cats can be a nuisance in the garden. They roll on plants, smashing them and breaking the stems, and use fresh-dug soil as an outdoor litter box. You can try keeping cats away with deer and rabbit repellent, or cat and dog repellent (check the label to see if it’s safe to put on plants, especially edible plants). And you can try to put up fencing, especially with loose chicken wire at the top; cats don’t like to climb wobbly things. But what can be really effective is making the ground less attractive to walk on.

Cats love smooth soil and open space. To keep cats away from open soil, make it less comfortable. Put down netting, chicken wire, or mesh, or pine cones. You can put them on the surface of the soil, or bury them under a thin layer of soil if you prefer a more rustic look. When the cat scratches, it will get an unwelcome surprise. Strips of outdoor carpeting can also help.

If you don’t have mesh lying around, you can also stick plastic forks, chopsticks, plant stakes, or other detritus upright in the soil every 8 inches or so, so there aren’t any clear areas for scratching and rolling.

8. If all else fails, use chemical sprays

A woman spraying pesticides on her garden
Credit: Getty Images / macniak

Chemical pesticides should be a last resort because they can also harm wildlife that isn't trying to attack your garden.

Nobody wants to spray their garden with poison, which is why you should choose a chemical spray safe to use around kids, pets, and your plants. These sprays are also safe for important pollinators like bees.

Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki (BTK), commonly sold under the name Thuricide, is a bacteria that attacks caterpillars. It only works if the caterpillar eats it, so spray it on a plant with a current infestation. It’s safe to use near bees and beneficial insects like lacewings. This is approved for use on organic farms and is safe to use on edible crops. Follow the label directions, and remember to apply it again after a rain.

Three other common pesticides—horticultural oil, spinosad, and azadirachtin—are considered safe for humans and most other species, but are toxic to bees. You should spray these chemicals only at dusk or dawn. Use these substances wisely, and you can protect your garden and the earth.

Get the Bonide Thuricide Liquid Concentrate at Amazon for $11

Related content

  • Container gardening on a balcony

    feature

    How to grow a container garden if you don’t have a yard
  • Someone is kneeling in a garden, wearing gardening gloves, and working at the soil with a gardening fork.

    best-right-now

    The Best Gardening Gloves of 2024

Up next