Vegetable gardens are a fun way to bring a colorful and sustainable food source into your home. Vegetable gardens can bring joy but can also cause heartache when common pests destroy them. Pest Managers offers a pest control service which is effective and safe for your vegetables and the environment.
Pest Managers:
Pest Managers is a pest control, rodent control, and bird proofing company. Pests can affect both your home and your business. Pest Managers is here to ensure effective and efficient pest control in any pest-infected space in Cape Town.
Pest Managers are based in Cape Town. We offer pest control to Cape Town central, the northern suburbs, and the southern suburbs. Our pest control Cape Town services also extend to surrounding areas Blouberg, Somerset West, Strand and Stellenbosch. Pest Managers wants you and your business to have easy access to pest control.
For our pest control services in Cape Town, Pest Managers goes above and beyond. With our guaranteed service, you can be assured that all pests which are damaging your home or business will be effectively removed. This is done by having a team of experienced technicians who are highly experienced in pest control.
Since COVID-19, Pest Managers now offers a hygiene service. This service includes the disinfection of your home, business, school, or shopping center. The disinfectant services include the options of fogging, manual decontamination, floor decontamination, and spray decontamination.
From larger pests to microscopic pests, Pest Managers is your go-to company for pest control in Cape Town.
Vegetable Gardens in Cape Town:
Cape Town has seen a rapid increase in Community Garden Projects. Masikhanye Food Garden, Moya We Khaya Peace Gardens, and Soil for Life are a few of the Cape Town-based non-profit organizations which are using vegetable gardens to address food security and employment in the Mother City.
These organizations which are making an impact on their communities are inspiring. They have shown that a vegetable garden can mean so much more than just a way to grow produce. No matter what your reasoning is behind creating a vegetable garden, there can only be a positive outcome.
Benefits of a Vegetable Garden:
Vegetable gardens benefit everyone, from your community to your family. Read our quick list of a few of the benefits you reap from sewing a few vegetable seeds.
Home Grown Vegetables: Nothing beats walking out your back door, pulling a carrot out of the ground, and creating a delicious meal with your homegrown vegetables. Homegrown vegetables are a healthy way to ensure that the vegetables you are consuming are as fresh as possible and are more beneficial for your health.
Family Activity: Vegetable gardens do not appear overnight. Depending on your space and the size of your planned vegetable garden, you will need to take time to get your garden ready for planting. Keeping your vegetable garden maintained is also critical. Planting and maintaining a vegetable garden are an awesome activity to get your whole family involved.
Cost-effective: Your grocery shopping list is getting shorter, but every time you are spending more. Often the first things to be scratched off your grocery list are fresh fruits or vegetables. These items are costly and are often viewed as luxury items in many households. A vegetable garden ensures that you have access to a variety of fresh vegetables whilst enjoying a reduced monthly food bill.
Vegetable Garden Guide for Cape Town:
Most vegetables and herbs thrive in Cape Town. This allows you to grow a variety of vegetables which can add color to your garden and your dinner plate.
If you are aiming to create a vegetable garden that is bright with variety then you need to ensure that you know the exact growing conditions for each vegetable. We suggest doing full research on each vegetable you decide to grow to ensure success. Here are a few things to keep in mind when growing vegetables.
Soil: Much like how we eat vegetables for beneficial nutrients, vegetables need nutrient-rich soil to grow. There are many different composts or fertilizers which are suited to making your vegetables grow. You also need to ensure that your vegetable garden soil can drain as overly wet soil can lead to rotting vegetables.
Sunshine: Certain vegetables thrive in full sun whereas others will wilt and die in the Cape Town summer sunshine. Do research on which vegetables need full sunlight, partial sunlight, or total shade and plant accordingly.
Protection: Wind and animals can cause damage to the growth of your vegetables. Ensure your vegetable garden is protected by surrounding it with a fence, covering it with a shade cloth, or providing your creeping plants with sticks to cling to.
Companion Plants: Companion planting is the process of planting certain plants near one another. This can help ward off unwanted pests and promote plant growth. The opposite can also occur, so it is critical to be aware of which vegetable plants work well with each other and which vegetable plants to keep separate.
You must also plant your vegetables at the correct time to ensure that they grow successfully. This is a list of commonly grown vegetables and the suggested planting time suited to Cape Town.
- Climbing Beans: July – January.
- Beetroot: July – November.
- Carrot: January – April.
- Cauliflower: December – January.
- Lettuce: August – May.
- Onion: April – May.
- Potatoes: January – August.
- Spinach: March – May.
- Tomato: July – October.
Vegetable Garden Designs:
From the suburbs to the city center, there is a suitable space for a vegetable garden everywhere. Work with the space you have and incorporate any of these three vegetable garden designs into your home.
1) Boxes:
Vegetable garden boxes are vegetables that are planted in a raised garden bed. This can be in the form of a crate or large container placed in your back garden or on your apartment veranda.
Vegetable garden boxes are a practical alternative for those who live in an apartment block in Cape Town city center. Create a beautiful roof-top garden with stylish vegetable garden boxes that add both beauty and natural space to your urban home.
Depending on the size of your vegetable garden boxes, they can be portable. This is excellent for those who rent and do not want to leave their vegetable garden behind when they move.
2) Pots:
Planting vegetables in pots is ideally suited to those with no garden and limited indoor space. Vegetables planted in pots work perfectly for a single person as there is a limit on the number of vegetables that will be able to be planted in a pot.
3) Vertical Garden:
Vertical gardens are trending, and we can understand why. Now take this trend and turn it into something which is both visually appealing and functional by creating a vertical vegetable garden. There are many cheap and uncomplicated ways to create a vertical vegetable garden, such as attaching small pots to a wooden pallet.
Pest Control Cape Town for Vegetable Garden Pests:
Pests can affect the growth of your vegetables or destroy your vegetables entirely. Pest Managers understands how this can be disheartening after the effort and excitement you have put into your vegetable garden.
Often, we avoid using pesticides on our vegetables due to the worry that this will kill or affect the growth of our vegetables. Pest Managers uses the process of target-specific eradication for the pests which are affecting your vegetable plants. Target-specific eradication guarantees the removal of your vegetable pests without damaging the vegetable plants.
Pest Managers is an accredited company that has been approved by the government and health industries. Using a pesticide on your vegetable garden in Cape Town to remove pests will not affect the safety of consuming the vegetables.
Pest Managers also understand that while some insects are pests, others can be beneficial to your plants. Ladybugs are beneficial insects because they feed on other common insects. Pest Managers can target pest insects whilst not killing other beneficial insects in your vegetable garden.
Printable Guide for Common Vegetable Pests:
Here is a printable guide for all the pests found in gardens that target vegetables.
|
Pest: |
Description: | Vegetables Commonly Affected: |
Damage Caused: |
| Leaf Miners: | An adult Leaf Miner is a grey or white fly.
The Leaf Miners’ larva is a yellow caterpillar with a signature pair of black mouth hooks. |
Beets, chard, and spinach. | Leaf Miners destroy plants by feeding on the leaves leaving a damaging white trail as they go. |
| Aphids: | Aphids are small white insects with a pear-shaped body. | Aphids attack any green plants and vegetables. There are also specific aphids which target potatoes. | Aphids cause plant leaves to curl and stunt plant growth. They also transmit other diseases to your plants. |
| Snails: | Snails are soft bodied with a hard protective shell. | Lettuce, spinach, cabbage, peppers, beans, and celery. | Snails have huge appetites and can eat large amounts of plants. Snails can cause holes in your plants, cause plants to die, and eat seeds before they spout. |
| Cabbage Looper: | The larvae are small, light green caterpillars.
The adult cabbage loopers turn into butterflies. |
Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, turnip, and kale. | Both the larvae and the adult cabbage loopers feed on the vegetable leaves, which cause gaping holes which can kill the vegetable plant. |
| Armyworms: | Armyworm larvae are short, brown caterpillars.
Army worm adults are brown moths. |
Beans, cabbage, carrots, onions, peas, and radishes. | The larvae cause damage by burrowing into the vegetable and eating the plant.
The adult armyworms damage vegetables by laying their eggs on the leaves and flowers of the vegetable. |
| Mealybugs: | Small white bugs which have a fuzzy appearance. | Beans, lettuce, tomato, beets, pepper, pumpkin, and cabbage. | Mealybugs cause vegetable leaves to wilt and turn yellow which can kill your plant. |
Environmentally Friendly Pest Control:
Pest Managers is one of the few environmentally friendly pest control companies. Our pest control is environmentally friendly through the process of only targeting the specific destructive species affecting your vegetable garden.
Pest Managers is also environmentally friendly as the pesticides used are biodegradable products. This means that the pest control products used degrade naturally and do not have any other effects on the surrounding environment. This includes the soil, surrounding animals, or water sources near your vegetable garden.
Quick, effective, and professional pest control does not have to impact the environment. Pest Managers puts both you and the environment first, which ensures that you receive quality service that does not have long-term effects on your home environment.
Get rid of any pests affecting your vegetable garden with Pest Managers pest control Cape Town.