Growing Plants Indoors: Pest and Disease Management

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“The Integral Urban House” is a comprehensive guide to achieving a completely sustainable urban lifestyle by creating a mini-ecosystem where residents grow their own fruits and vegetables, raise chickens, rabbits and fish, recycle 90 percent of their waste, solar heat their hot water and use a variety of other alternative technologies — all on a 1/8-acre city lot.
“The Integral Urban House” is a comprehensive guide to achieving a completely sustainable urban lifestyle by creating a mini-ecosystem where residents grow their own fruits and vegetables, raise chickens, rabbits and fish, recycle 90 percent of their waste, solar heat their hot water and use a variety of other alternative technologies — all on a 1/8-acre city lot.
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The major pests indoors are aphids, scales, whiteflies, mealybugs and mites. The pest insects usually enter the home on the houseplant itself or are brought in with other garden materials and find their way to the house plants.
The major pests indoors are aphids, scales, whiteflies, mealybugs and mites. The pest insects usually enter the home on the houseplant itself or are brought in with other garden materials and find their way to the house plants.

Growing plants indoors allows you to pick ripe Chile peppers from the pot or snip fresh herbs at your convenience. Learn how to manage your indoor plants, and you can have a lush culinary garden at your fingertips. Prevent an aphid infestation, help plants bounce back from mold and solve other common indoor gardening problems in this excerpt from The Integral Urban House(New Catalyst Books, 2008). This excerpt from Chapter 9, “Raising Plants Indoors.”

Growing Plant Indoors: Insect Pest Management

Because of the extremely simplified ecosystem, indoor plants may suffer from the lack of biological controls, that is, the predators that would keep plant pests in check in a more biologically complex environment. Insect pests may be even more difficult to control in the house than in the greenhouse, where lacewings and predatory mites can sometimes be maintained on a year-round basis.

The major pests indoors are aphids, scales, whiteflies, mealybugs, and mites. (These first four are all closely related Homoptera, producing honeydew.) The pest insects usually enter the home on the houseplant itself or are brought in with other garden materials and find their way to the house plants.

The first strategy you might wish to use when a few bugs appear is physical: handpick, squash, or rub them off. Cotton swabs or a small brush dipped in alcohol may help you to get into hard-to-reach nooks and crannies where the insects may be found. Washing the plant off in a mild soapy water may also help.

  • Published on Aug 3, 2012
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