Pest And Disease Prevention

The best way to cope with pests and diseases is to prevent them from happening in the first place. Take good, basic care of your plants and you'll ward off the vast majority of problems you might otherwise encounter. A healthy plant is able to ward off problems, while a stressed plant will be a pest and disease magnet.

Here's how to keep your plants healthy:

Do the basics.

Keep your plants watered. Harvest vegetables and fruits regularly. Mulch to keep soil from splashing on leaves. Water in the morning so the plants dry off quickly and whenever possible, water the soil directly rather than splashing the plants. All these things prevent disease.

Provide enough sun.

Many, many disease and pest problems occur because those plants that like full sun aren't getting the minimum of 6 full hours of unfiltered, direct sunlight.

Choose disease-resistant cultivars.

Some plants, such as tomatoes, are very disease-prone. Choose those types that tout themselves as disease- and pest-resistant.

Avoid too much of the same plant.

When you plant lots and lots of the same thing (the horticultural term for this is "monoculture"), you're just asking for a disease or pest to rip through it. That's because one small problem can spread like wildfire through a monoculture. Pests and diseases have definite preferences of one plant over another, and if the planting is mixed up, they can't spread very easily. So avoid planting all of your, say, roses in the same place. Instead mix them up with a variety of perennials and annuals.

Don't keep planting in the same place.

With annual flowers and vegetables, plant different things in different places each year. Planting the same thing keeps depleting the exact same nutrients from the soil and provides an ideal situation for pest and diseases that like that plant to stay over from year to year. (This is especially true of tomatoes.)

Mix it up and the problems are less likely to latch onto their favorite host plant. In fact, experienced gardeners, don't plant the same annual within 50 feet of the same spot from year to year.

Provide good air circulation.

When plants are jammed in too close together, air can't move freely among them. These close quarters encourage fungal diseases. To prevent this, plant at the space recommended on the label.

Fertilize right.

Over-fertilizing sometimes can create pest and disease problems because it results in weak, overly lush tender growth that's very susceptible. So be sure to follow package directions and err on the side of feeding too little rather than too much.

And remember that fertilizing is not a solution for pest or disease problems. There's an old saying that fertilizer is a food, not a medicine. That's because applying fertilizer to a plant is like stuffing food into a person with the flu. It's not going to make the problem any better and it may even make it worse.

Move fast when a problem does strike.

When you spot a problem, move fast to do something about it. If it's small, you can often just trim off the problem plant part and it won't recur. As a precaution, give the whole plant a spray with water, including underneath the leaves.

If the problem recurs in a few days, take in a part of the plant to your local garden center. Ask for an experienced staff member, who can tell you want the problem is and recommend a solution.