Simple Strategies Can Protect Transplants From Close Encounters With Voracious Pests

Vegetable and flower transplants are apt to suffer three kinds damage by three garden pests this time of year:

* Stems chopped off at the soil line (cutworms).

* Leaves chewed (slugs).

* Leaves shot full of tiny holes (flea beetles).

All can be controlled without spraying pesticides.

Cutworms only take a few bites out of young plants, which would be OK if only those bites were not at ground level. The toppled seedlings never recover. Thwart cutworms with some sort of barrier such as a cardboard collar placed around each transplant and pressed an inch into the soil. Before a cutworm takes a bite of a plant, it wraps its body around the stem to see if it is tender enough to eat. So you also can fool cutworms by sticking a toothpick in the ground right up against each transplant. The insects believe they are embracing small, woody-stemmed trees and ignore them.

Slugs love to slither around at night in wet, spring weather. Slugs dislike anything sharp or caustic rubbing against their slimy bodies, so they’ll think twice about crossing a barrier of either sharp sand, diatomaceous earth (sharp remains of tiny sea creatures, sold in garden centers) or wood ashes sprinkled around plants. These barriers must be renewed after rains.

You could take a flashlight into the garden at night and sneak up on slugs while they are at work. They are slippery to handpick, so take along a saltshaker. Sprinkling salt on them will dehydrate and kill them.

Beer is an effective poison bait for slugs as many gardeners know by experience. Put a shallow pan of beer on the ground, and almost immediately, slugs will start inching to their death. No need to open a fresh bottle each night, for slugs are happy even with stale beer.

Flea beetles are the most difficult to control without pesticides. You may not even notice them because they are very short and hop away when approached.

The easiest way to control flea beetles is to exclude them by covering plants with a barrier of a “floating row cover.” These lightweight materials, made from spun-bonded or woven synthetic materials, are permeable to water, air and sun but not to insects.

Another approach that sometimes works to control flea beetles is to ignore them. Small plants that are growing rapidly often outgrow any damage.