Thinking about using new soil this upcoming spring in all of my raided beds as a pest "reset"

[gg_1899]

HI,
In the past 3-4 years I've seen some incremental increase in pest problems in my garden. Mostly affecting cucumber and sweet pepper plants, but not only. It seems the issue is incremental - while in previous years I've seen "trouble" on the leafs (bites, disease) a month or so after planting, in this past season trouble was almost immediate.

In the cucumbers' case - I'm able to harvest and eat, in the pepper's case - it could end up in a dead plant even when I take care of it daily - prune bad leaves, spray with garlic solution, etc.
I know this should not be some magic solution, but truly in the past season I felt like I'm losing the battle, which in previous years was still manageable.

Can replacing the soil in the raised beds be considered as a valid solution ? if so - how deep should I go in the soil, when I pour in new one ?
Additionally, Is there any prep work / soil treatment I could do in order to ready the soil better for planting season wrt diseases/pest mitigation ?

I practice crop rotation as much as possible, due to surrounding trees and other landscape I'm limited with planting locations for full sun plants.
Thank you.

 

[YumYum]

Most things affecting your plants is in the soil everywhere around you so changing your soil probably isn't going to help anything since the fungal spores will blow with the wind and reaffect your plant. If you have fusarium or verticillium wilt in the bed or something else that comes up through the roots, then that may be a worthy cause to change out your soil.

If you are using some sort of fungicide, you have to use it as a preventative and not a cure so you have to have the protection on the plants leaves before the fungus lands on the plant and gets wet enough to propogate.

 

[redback]

My solutions are
1. Increase diversity
2. Increase density
3. Increase the use of advanced seedlings.
Don't plant things in rows of the same plant. I recently lost two attempts at planting beans and all I can blame are the blackbirds who must have walked along the rows eating shallow planted beans. I have now used a wild looking stack of dead leaves as a temporary mulch. At the same time, I planted ten advanced seedlings of basil in ten completely different places between other different plants and all succeeded.
So don't go for standard neatness. Interplant all your crops as far as possible. Mulch with unattractive dead grasses. Let useful weeds grow and create a denseness and variety of plants. Some of the plants should be bee and insect attracters to establish maximum predator numbers. Things like ladybirds, praying mantis, lacewings, wasps, birds, lizards and frogs should be enticed to visit. Keep a number of water bowls filled.
Planting a green manure like mustard will help remove harmful nematodes and greatly increase the beneficial soil microbes.
I could go on because this problem is known to all gardeners.

 

[Tetters]

Changing your soil will not make any difference when it comes to pests. As you get rid of them some more will move in. The best way to deal with pests is to stop using poisons. Encourage the garden helpers to survive. If you help them, they will help you.
This is a supplement to the excellent advice from redback.

 

[gg_1899]

Okay, thank you to everyone responding, I would like to sharpen a certain point :

How can the decrease in number of days since transplanting to time of signs of trouble - year over year be explained ? For example I have "Asian <insert name here> bug" attacking my cucumbers. I mitigate that with neem seed oil - which works great. But, that attack used to show up 4 weeks into the plant life, then 2 weeks, then even fewer days than that.


Same goes for my sweet pepper plants - I am not sure what is attacking them (diseases or pest), but it used to happen only on some of them, and quite later in their life. Now - nearly two weeks into it - all sweet peppers plants get affected - no matter their location in the garden.

A side note to @Tetters: The only compounds I used for mitigation are neem seed oil and garlic/water solution. Thank you.

 

[YumYum]

June bugs will be in the soil as a larvae to start with and when the weather warms up or is correct they emerge as the beetle and feed. Alot of insects are like that. Maybe the weather has been getting warmer sooner and it just appears that way. Basically the same applies to fungi with temp and humidity. In the upcoming year it may seem to happen later instead of sooner. Just a guess.

I've just saw on the news we are expecting the 13 year brood of cicadas to emerge this coming year.

 

[redback]

The bugs might be anticipating your routine.
I was planting cucumbers in early spring and getting wiped out by red-legged earth mites. I planted later and the mite predators (lacewings) were there waiting for the mite to show up. If you can, grow the small seedlings in pots inside and plant later. Older, larger seedlings have more immunity to attack.

 

[Tetters]

We always find that we have to accept the fact ''win some, lose some'' We tend to have all kinds of weather related problems and try to learn as we go on. Gardening is not a perfect science, and experience is the way to learn and combat problems.
We tend to stick to growing mostly the crops that are successful and work out problems with others as we go along.
Last year an unexpected severely cold wind took all the beans out - and they are usually a crop that we take for granted. Nothing can go wrong with those....but it did
The bottom line is ....persevere!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

What are the walls of your raised beds made from? I have experienced problems with them providing a good place for bugs and slugs to overwinter.
I would agree with redback, the more mature your plants are when they go in the less susceptible they will be.
Going over the ground with a flame gun might help.

I recently lost two attempts at planting beans and all I can blame are the blackbirds who must have walked along the rows eating shallow planted beans.

If that were my garden mice would be the culprits, I have to germinate peas and beans indoors, or in the rafters of the shed with a gallon can each end to make them inaccessible. Older gardening books recommend treating the row with paraffin (kerosene), or even dipping the seeds in it; I don't fancy that.

 

[Tetters]

Ha Oliver, my grandad used to put all his pea seeds in paraffin and never had any trouble with mice eating them. He always had a superb crop without fail. When it was time to grow potatoes he would instruct my gran to start peeling the ''tatties'' thickly, and he grew a new crop from those peelings - that worked too.
It was grandad who taught me to love the garden - and I did. He had an allotment as well as the garden behind the house, and I was the chosen grandchild to go with him to help from a very early age. Happy memories, getting mucky and smelling the soil as he dug it over.
I suggest giving the paraffin a go!!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I suggest giving the paraffin a go!!

I get by germinating away from mice. From what I gather there are laws in the US to prevent polluting the ground with oil products, I don't know if they are federal or local. Thing is the stuff has to go somewhere, and it is not going to be good for wherever it is, so as I can avoid it fairly easily it seems sensible to do so.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I get by germinating away from mice. From what I gather there are laws in the US to prevent polluting the ground with oil products, I don't know if they are federal or local. Thing is the stuff has to go somewhere, and it is not going to be good for wherever it is, so as I can avoid it fairly easily it seems sensible to do so.

 

[cpp gardener]

If it’s bugs attacking new transplants, you can cover them with floating row cover material until they’re big enough to withstand defoliation. If the soil is infested with fungal spores or a bacterial disease, you can solarize it in the summer with clear plastic covering the ground. You’ll miss a crop while you’re treating , but you’ll have fewer problems the next time around.

 

[redback]

You're right about covering young plants with fine mesh but the solarization has become controversial.
If you go to YouTube and dial up 'microbiome' there is indisputable scientific proof that good soil is alive with millions of microbes. This theory says to never leave soil without a cover crop. Encourage all the soil life - bacteria, fungi, enzymes, protozoa, parasites as well as worms are seen as vital to producing a high nutrient crop of anything.
Gardening is changing.

 

[Tetters]

You're right about covering young plants with fine mesh but the solarization has become controversial.
If you go to YouTube and dial up 'microbiome' there is indisputable scientific proof that good soil is alive with millions of microbes. This theory says to never leave soil without a cover crop. Encourage all the soil life - bacteria, fungi, enzymes, protozoa, parasites as well as worms are seen as vital to producing a high nutrient crop of anything.
Gardening is changing.

This forum is supposed to be for gardeners with experience having a chat about their favourite subject. It is useful too for older gardeners to try and help younger inexperienced ones and give a bit of encouragement.
Surely we all know by now all about artificial intelligence, but some like to choose to stay in the real world and do things and discuss them in a good old fashioned, plain speaking way.
As for science, there should be lots of debate and change about that - that's what science is supposed to portray. These days we are dictated to about THE science, like it is a final answer and we have to accept it. I think not. Gardening has always changed, ideas change, methods change. Google makes no difference at all in my garden, but a chat over the fence sometimes does.