On any warm summer day, your garden is filled with flying, crawling, and jumping insects.
But very few of these creatures are plant pests.
Most of them - including spiders, lady beetles, and many wasps and flies - are more interested in capturing other insects than aggravating gardeners.
So controlling the few insects that are pests really isn't hard.
Organic gardeners have devised lots of useful sprays, barriers, and traps for controlling pests without chemical pesticides.
Pest insects usually have specific food requirements.
Many of pest control formulas work by tricking pests into thinking that they are on the wrong plant or making them eat something that they can't digest.
There are also formulas for bigger pests, like squirrels, deer, cats, and dogs.
These pesky animals can frustrate gardeners by eating or trampling plants.
But, although we don't want animals to hurt our gardens, we also don't want to hurt the animals, so all of the formulas you'll use are strictly nonpoisonous.
They work by conditioning animals to look elsewhere for dinner.
Use the same approaches when developing your own formulas to solve unusual pest problems in your garden.
For example, if you have a problem with an insect that eats one type of plant but is never seen on another, try planting the two types of plants close to each other to confuse the pest and lessen the damage.
Or you might brew a tea from leaves of the plant the pest ignores and use it to drench the plant the pest likes.
It just might fool them!