Grubs:
Homemade remedies.
1 cup of laundry soap
5 gallons of water
Mix well and saturate the patch, where you think your grubs are. It works on Chinch bugs too.
Earwigs:
I usually don't find these until they've already done a number on my roses or lilies.
On earwigs, I use earwig bait. Some people use wet newspapers to attract earwigs, it works, but it looks messy.
Recycling a piece of garden hose work as well. Just cut a piece of garden hose, hide it in a shady spot in the garden somewhere. Early in the morning, dump the culprits in soapy water and they will drown.
I have used oil traps for earwigs.
Fill a small container 3/4 full of water and pour in about 1/8" of cooking oil.
The cooking oil will attract the earwigs and the water will drown them.
I seem to trap a lot of ants too.
Slugs and snails:
I think most gardeners could write a book on these.
I too have tried everything from, beer traps to slug bait.
I've gone back to just using slug bait, if they eat more than their share.
I also hunt for them after a rain, early morning and before dark with a bottle of a homemade concoction.
I use a spray bottle 3/4 filled with water, few drops of liquid soap and 1/4 cup of ammonium.
Then I just squirt the chlorophyll suckers whenever I find them. homemade slug bait
Birds:
I love my birds but, I don't know how to keep them off my sunflowers.
I've tried bird netting, but the squirrels had that shredded to pieces in no time.
Have you been able to keep your sunflowers out of the squirrels reach?
Could you share with us how you did it?
Squirrels:
Squirrels at my house have won the seed battle, but I won the bulb war.
Squirrels are the most tenacious of all my pests.
They're up before me and go to bed long after I'm indoors.
The wire cages are working and I'm sharing how I made them below. Wire cages for bulbs and lilies
Please let me if you try these or if you have other ways of keep the squirrels from eating your garden.
I'll share the fruit from my fruit trees, but not my bulbs or my sunflower seeds. :)
