Weeds

Burdock

Dandelion

Weeds generally share similar adaptations that give them advantages and allow them to proliferate in disturbed environments whose soil or natural vegetative cover has been damaged. Different types of habitat and disturbances will result in colonization by different communities of weed species.

Naturally occurring disturbed environments include dunes and other windswept areas with shifting soils, alluvial flood plains, river banks and deltas, and areas that are often burned. Since human agricultural practices often mimic these natural environments where weedy species have evolved, weeds have adapted to grow and proliferate in human-disturbed areas such as agricultural fields, lawns, roadsides, and construction sites. 

Weed seeds are often collected and transported with crops after the harvesting of grains. Many weed species have moved out of their natural geographic locations and have spread around the world with humans.

Weeds may be unwanted for a number of reasons:

• competing with the desired plants for the resources that a plant typically needs, namely, direct sunlight, soil nutrients, water, and (to a lesser extent) space for growth;
• providing hosts and vectors for plant pathogens, giving them greater opportunity to infect and degrade the quality of the desired plants;
• providing food or shelter for animal pests such as seed-eating birds and Tephritid fruit flies that otherwise could hardly survive seasonal shortages;
• offering irritation to the skin or digestive tracts of people or animals, either physical irritation via thorns, prickles, or burs, or chemical irritation via natural poisons or irritants in the weed (for example, the poisons found in Nerium species);
• causing root damage to engineering works such as drains, road surfaces, and foundations

White clover

A number of weeds, such as the dandelion Taraxacum, are edible, and their leaves and roots may be used for food or herbal medicine. Burdock is common over much of the world, and is sometimes used to make soup and other medicine in East Asia. White clover is considered by some to be a weed in lawns, but in many other situations is a desirable source of fodder, honey and soil nitrogen.

A short list of some plants that often are considered to be weeds follows:

• Bermuda grass - perennial, spreading by runners, rhizomes and seeds.
• Bindweed
• Broadleaf plantain – perennial, spreads by seeds that persist in the soil for many years
• Burdock – biennial
• Common lambsquarters - annual
• Creeping Charlie – perennial, fast-spreading plants with long creeping stems
• Dandelion – perennial, wind-spread, fast-growing, and drought-tolerant
• Goldenrod – perennial
• Japanese Knotweed
• Kudzu – perennial
• Leafy spurge – perennial, with underground stems
• Milk thistle – annual or biennial
• Poison ivy – perennial
• Ragweed – annual
• Sorrel – annual
• St John's wort - perennial
• Sumac – woody perennial
• Tree of heaven - woody perennial
• Wild carrot – biennial
• Wood sorrel – perennial
• Yellow nutsedge - perennial

Flies and beans

The tip of the bean's plant is the one that attracts the flies, so its recommended to cut the tip after the flowers are out, around June or July.

Garlic spray to kill plagues

1. Break apart one head of garlic. There is no need to peel it but you should chop off the hard end, as it will just be in the way in the blender. Throw them into the blender with 2 cups of hot water. Blend the garlic until it is finely minced, about 3 minutes.
2. Pour the water/garlic mixture into a mason jar and cover tightly. Set it aside for at least 12 hours, overnight works well. The garlic flavors and oils will dissolve into the water. Strain into a quart container, using a fine-meshed strainer so that no particles come through.
3. Mix the strained garlic water and 1 teaspoon of Ivory dish soap and pour into a spray bottle.
4. Spray the plants with the garlic spray, coating it until it is wet with the spray. Spray early in the day or in the late afternoon when the heat of the day will not cause the soap to hurt the foliage. The soap will break the surface tension, causing many bugs to suffocate, while the garlic will make the plant taste terrible for the bugs.
5. Reapply the garlic spray after every rain, since the water will rinse it off the plants.

Organic pepper spray for plants

1. Mince six hot peppers with a sharp knife. Use care not to touch your face or eyes after handling hot peppers as the juice will burn sensitive skin.
2. Place the minced peppers in a glass jar and cover with 2 to 3 tablespoons of oil. You can use mineral oil if preferred, but any cooking oil will do. Mix to distribute the oil.
3. Replace the lid and allow to soak 24 to 48 hours.
4. Add 1 pint of water and 3 tbsp. of liquid dish detergent. Mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon.
5. Strain through a double layer of cheesecloth to removed the peppers. Store in a tightly closed mason jar.
6. Fill a spray bottle with 2 tbsp. of the solution to 1 pint of water.
7. Spray plants in the morning or in early evening to prevent damage to sensitive plants in the heat of the day.
8. Check plant sensitivity to the solution by spraying a few leaves. If they do not show signs of damage within four days, it is safe to use the solution on the plant. Some sensitive plants may require a weaker solution.

Make a quick solution by mixing the ingredients in the blender and mixing with water. This is not as effective, but will do in an emergency.

Deter insects with plants

The following are plants often used in vegetable gardens to deter insects

Plant	Pests
Basil	Repels flies and mosquitoes.
Catnip	Deters flea beetle.
Dill	Deters black bean beetles.
Garlic	Deters Japanese beetle.
Horseradish	Deters potato bugs and phytopthora
Marigold	The workhorse of pest deterrents. Discourages Mexican bean beetles, nematodes and others.
Mint	Deters white cabbage moth, ants.
Nasturtium	Deters aphids, squash bugs, cabbage moth, Whitefly and striped pumpkin beetles.
Pot Marigold	Deters asparagus beetle, Manduca quinquemaculata (tomato horn worm), and general garden pests.
Peppermint	Repels the white cabbage butterfly.
Rosemary	Deters cabbage moth, bean beetles and carrot fly.
Sage	Deters cabbage moth and carrot fly.
Southernwood	Deters cabbage moth.
Summer Savory	Deters bean beetles.
Tansy	Deters flying insects, Japanese beetles, striped cucumber beetle, squash bugs and ants.
Thyme	Deters cabbage worm.
Wormwood	Deters animals from garden.

Deterring mammals without chemical

Rabbits and deer are the most annoying big pests.

If you can afford it and it's feasible to do so, putting up a fence is the only fool-proof way to keep animals out of your garden.

Other methods can be:

1. Bloodmeal: Bloodmeal is a by product of meat packing plants. It's dried and flaked blood and animals strongly dislike the smell of it. Prey animals like rabbits and deer are spooked by the smell of blood, even old dried blood. Bloodmeal is also extremely high in nitrogen and a great additive for your garden. Sprinkle it around your plants and in your garden beds. Take care, however, not to sprinkle the powder directly on the plants. The high nitrogen content can burn the leaves.
2. Introduce Strong Scents: If you have a strong aversion to spreading bloodmeal all over your yard, you can also introduce other strong scents. Deer, particularly, are not fond of really strong smells like bars of scented soap, cheap perfume, and other strong smells. 
3. Scare them offf with Water: Scarecrow sprinklers look like regular lawn sprinklers, except they have a battery-powered motion sensor. Anything that gets in the path of the sensor gets a sudden and intense blast of water. 

Slugs-free without chemicals

Slugs:

Coffee grounds are a great addition to your garden. They add nitrogen to the soil, they increase the acidity for acid loving plants, and, best of all, a wide range of creatures can't stand coffee grounds. Slugs hate coffee, cats hate coffee; it's even sometimes an effective olfactory-based repellent for picky deer.

Slugs are, in my humble opinion, the most annoying of garden pests. They're the veritable ninjas of plant destruction. Unless you're looking for them—and carefully—it's rare to see slugs at all, yet every night they descend upon your garden and chew the crap out of everything. You can deal with slugs a variety of ways depending on your adversity to killing them or merely redirecting them to your neighbor's yard.

Coffee grounds, as mentioned above, will deter slugs to a degree. Even more effective, and radically longer lasting, is copper. Slugs and snails hate copper. You can use copper in a variety of forms to keep them away. To keep slugs from crawling up into your potted plants you can put decorative copper tape around the body of the container.

You can make an effective slug trap with little more than an orange rind or a shallow container and some grape juice or beer. Save the half-rinds from citrus fruits like grape fruit and oranges and place them about your garden. Slugs will flock to the rind. Come morning you can throw the rind in the trash or put it on top of your compost pile to dry them out in the sun and mix them into your compost.

Crashed egg shells will also kill the slugs as they will get cut when licking the inside of the shell.


Some hints to get rid from slugs:

http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/about100.html

Rotation to avoid plagues

You change the crop from one place to the other to confuse the pests and distribute the nutrients. Each plant takes different nutrients from the soil.

For any pest, it takes a while to adapt to a specific plant, so its good to move plants, to chop them and change their space, so the pests don't have time to get familiar with the plants.