1. Sustainable Pest Control for Home and Garden
Kathy Murray
Maine Department of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Resources

2. Got Pests? Japanese Beetle Lily Leaf Beetle Viburnum Leaf Beetle
White Grubs

3. Use IPM! Integrated Pest Management
Monitor for pests and ‘pest-conducive’ conditions
Prevent Pests: Use sanitation, maintenance and good horticultural practices
Determine your Threshold: Is it really a pest? How many is too many?
Use multiple pest control methods that eliminate pest access to food, water, shelter.
Keep records: use a garden notebook

4. Elements of Garden IPM Know your enemy. Identify pests and good bugs.
Send samples to UM Pest Management Office or local Extension office for ID.
Visit or Bugguide.net or other websites to ID pests and learn their food, water, shelter requirements
Avoid pests
Use barriers (such as row covers, fence, bird netting)
Rotate crop families to new areas yearly

5. Elements of Garden IPM Use Good horticultural practices
Select right plants for right places
Choose pest-resistant, disease-resistant cultivars
Provide plants with optimal plant nutrition, right amt of water, optimal plant spacing.
Protect and Encourage Natural Enemies
Spare the (pesticide) sprays
Diverse plantings including season-long offering of plants with flat, open flowers to provide nectar for small beneficial insects.

6. Physical IPM Methods Mulching Sanitation
Can suppress weeds, conserve moisture, provide habitat for natural enemies
pull mulch away from the trunk to decrease pest/ disease potential
Sanitation
Rake leaves to reduce disease
Prune away diseased plant tissue

7. Physical Methods
Exclusion by screens, barriers (example: bird netting, row covers)
Pruning infested/infected plants
Physical removal. (example: hand-pick bugs!)

8. Know your (Natural) Enemies
Lady bug larva. Eats aphids!
Use GotPests website to ID beneficial insects

9. Spare the Sprays to Protect Beneficial Insects
Dragonflies
Spiders
Small parasitic wasps
Predatory mites
Syrphid flies
Ground beetles

11. Common Garden Pests and Solutions
Striped cucumber beetle
Transplant cukes, squash, zucchini, pumpkins instead of direct seed
Cover with spun-bonded row cover (example Remay, Typar) until flowering.

12. Lily Leaf Beetle Plant daylilies instead of true lilies
Hand pick beetles and larvae. Squish eggs.
Space plantings to allow good sunlight penetration.
Least-risk pesticide: neem (example Neemix, Bioneem) if needed.

13. Note: Winsome fly eggs. This beetle has been attacked by a natural enemy!
Japanese Beetle
Select non-preferred shrubs and trees (avoid linden, roses, crabapples, grapes, raspberries)
Hand-pick beetles (but leave the parasitized beetles)
Cover susceptible plants with protective netting
Grub Control: Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Hb) nematodes. purchase on-line, water them in.
Avoid Japanese beetle traps

14. Biological IPM Methods Rely on Natural Enemies
Winsome fly eggs
Winsome Fly: natural enemy of Japanese Beetle

15. Paper and Straw Mulch
Suppresses Weeds
Provides Habitat for Natural Enemies
Keeps Soil from Drying Out

16. Slugs and Snails Control weeds
Keep grass mown low or consider gravel strip around gardens
Traps (beer cups or wooden boards)
Copper foil ribbon around raised beds or pots.

17. Diseases Select resistant varieties
Select good site (water drainage, good soil, full sun, air movement)
Maintain good plant spacing
Mulch prevents rain-splash of soil-borne diseases
‘Rogue-out’ diseased plants
Ensure plants get the right amount of sun, water, and nutrition.

18. Avoid Late Blight Plant only certified potato seed
Destroy any volunteer potatoes
Plant only healthy tomato seedlings
Bag infected plants. Have disease confirmed by Extension. Dispose of infected plant tissue. Don’t compost

19. What about Indoor Pests?
Prevent Pests
Sanitation: don’t give pests food, water
Keep them out: repair screens, doors, cracks, crevices
Remove Pests
Vacuum, wash, comb, discard
Use Physical Control Methods
heat or freeze infested materials
swat them!
Use traps (flies, mice, moths)

20. Fleas
Treat the pet!
Bathe it and flea-comb often
Vacuum a lot. Rugs, upholstered furniture, floors. Put vacuum bag in freezer after each use.
Launder pet bedding
Spot-on pet treatments (eg Frontline) are safer than flea powders, shampoos, sprays, bombs.

21. Mice Keep food (human, pet, bird) in pest-proof container.
Empty garbage/compost daily. Use pest-proof garbage cans.
Seal cracks in foundation, exterior walls, under doors, etc
Trap them out

22. Bed Bug Interceptor under bed legs
Bed Bugs
When Travelling
Inspect hotel bed. Look for blackish spots and/or reddish-brown bugs (poppy-seed to apple-seed sized) along mattress seams.
Don’t put suitcase on bed or floor. Inspect suitcase upon return home. Look in crevices/seams/pockets for bugs.
Avoid second-hand furniture.
Home Infestation
Systematically search and vacuum every crack/crevice/seam in bedroom. Eggs don’t vacuum - scrape them up. Steam-clean carpet.
Seal mattress in zippered bedbug-proof mattress cover. Place traps under bed legs.
Hire reputable pest control company to inspect and treat (some use trained dogs and heat treatment instead of pesticides).
Find resources at
Bed Bug Interceptor under bed legs

23. Carpenter Ants
Locate Nests: Look for course sawdust next to wood, or oval holes about 1/8” wide, or put out food (try a milk/sugar paste) and follow them to nest or entry sites.
Locate and seal ant entry sites such as gaps under doors or around windows and cracks in the foundation.
Clean up and seal up food that attracts ants.
Do carpentry to remove ant-infested wood.
Ant baits such as those containing liquid borax or boric acid, placed near indoor ant activity is often effective.
Carpenter ant-damaged wood

24. Resources County Extension Office Maine Dept Agriculture: Gotpests.org
UMaine Extension:
National Pesticide Information Center