Eco-friendly solutions cost much
less than you'd pay the exterminator.
The
nastiest looking insect I’ve ever seen crawled out of a hole near a dead stump
in my garden the other day. I was weeding there, and I’m sure I disturbed it.
To be honest, I was scared. This thing looked like it could bite me and it
would hurt. I briefly considered the possibility that it was benevolent. Was it
a spider? I tried counting its legs — six, not eight.
Figuring
that this thing was as terrible as it looked, I killed it. I’d never seen a
termite, let alone a termite queen, but I couldn’t think of any other
explanation for this monster. A quick search online confirmed my hunch. She
wasn’t just a termite queen — she was full of eggs!
I panicked. I grow a lot of my food in the little patch of soil I call my garden. I garden organically, encouraging the biodiversity of microbes, plants, and even bugs. Pesticides aren’t welcome.
That
said, termites are bad news. So what’s an organic gardener to do? Again, the
Internet came to my rescue. For an outdoor soil infestation like mine, you
can get nematodes (tiny
worms) that kill termites. No pesticides needed — and the nematodes cost much
less than you’d pay the exterminator.
It’s
amazing how often we reach for pesticides to take care of bugs — not just in
our gardens. A can of Raid gets rid of bugs indoors, a terminator service
regularly sprays outside the house, pesticides kill head lice on your kids and
fleas on your cats, and you can even buy clothing treated with pesticides to
keep the mosquitoes away. And all of these chemicals are supposedly safe if
used according to the label instructions.
That’s where I see a disconnect. If all of the pesticides and other chemicals we are exposed to in our food, our water, our homes, and our environment are safe, then how does one explain that two out of every five Americans will get cancer during their lifetimes?
Getting
rid of pests without pesticides requires creativity. Preventing the problem is
the best cure, but what do you do once the pests have moved in?
My
first tactic is finding out about the pest’s diet, habitat, and life cycle to
see if it can easily be exterminated. Instead of spraying down all of the kids’
stuffed animals for head lice, the toys can go in the garage for a few weeks
until all of the lice and their eggs die of natural causes.
If
that doesn’t work, there are the old standbys of soapy water, diatomaceous
earth, or ash. They kill a wide range of insects. In the worst situations, I
opt for organic pesticides like pyrethrum, which is made from chrysanthemums.
However,
the best way to get rid of bugs is with other bugs — or bacteria, fungi,
nematodes, or anything else that eats the pest you’re trying to vanquish.
Beneficial organisms are uniquely adapted to seek out and kill the very pests
you want to get rid of, and they don’t stop until the job is done. Compared to
a chemical pesticide, they are far more targeted and thorough — not to mention
safe.
Let’s
cut down on pesticide use when there are easy, affordable, non-toxic
alternatives.
OtherWords columnist
Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and
What We Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org