Box Garden Pests

Last year my wife and I built and planted our first box garden. Some of the plants we wanted to grow included tomatoes and herbs. We didn't want to overdue it, so we stuck it out with just a couple types of plants. Everything was going great and we were excited to see our plants doing well until some critters started showing up.

Once our tomato plants got to be a decent size we started noticing some little inch worms and we didn't think to much about em, but in no time those little guys turned into something monstrous! In just a few days our plants were chewed through by a bucket load of fat green worms. They were literally everywhere throughout the two box gardens. There were hardly any leaves left on the plants.


Since we were beginners at starting a box garden we had no idea what to do about the infestation, so we turned to the best sources Google and Facebook! All joking aside, there were some remedies that came from people who had similar experiences. Some of the answers we found were to use Seven Dust, install bug repelling plants, and believe it or not just pick em off one by one.


We tried to dust em and spray em with chemicals, but they just kept coming. Literally the best solution for our situation was to pick em off the plants and do our best to get every single one. To be honest it was quite gross of the amount of worms we picked off. We filled up a small coffee bucket up full of those nasty green worms. Once we got all the full size worms off our plants the grass began looking a little greener on the other side.

After assuring there were not anymore worms it was simply left to killing off the inch worms who would turn into the big guys later. The Seven Dust helped control the inch worm population along with spiders. The dilemma of killing the spiders with the worms is that spiders hunt the worms, but the spiders could not keep up with the influx. Therefore, the spiders suffered the same fate as the worms.


One of the lessons we learned from the pest experience was how to detect when the worms were about to spring into action. It was quite easy because the left a trail of small spec sized poop. You could literally find the droppings and somewhere in the same vicinity would be the worm. The dark specs were easy to spot on the bright green tomato plant leaves.

Spotting the poop trail was once way to find the buggers, but the other way wasn't as easy which was to sit still and stare at the plants. The green bodies of the worms blend in like camouflage. However the best way to find the worms on the leaves were to look for tiny red/black dots on their bodies. Once you train your eyes to find the dots it is easy to target the worms.


Well, this year we took another stab at growing some plants again and we learned from our mistakes from last year. This year we dusted right away and we have not experienced nearly as bad infestations. Basically we have nipped the problem in the butt. The dust kills off the inch worms and most spiders before they can multiply. Our tomatoes and zucchini have flourished and we are happy campers, so far.

I know we are not the only ones who have experienced such pest infestations in gardens like we have. Let us know in the comments if you are battling bugs like we did or something like worms. What are you doing to combat the problem or do you have any suggestions for prevention? We have considered installing some repelling plants like marigolds to help keep away not only the worms, but other bugs like mosquitoes.

What other kinds of gardening systems do you use other than box gardens?