Common Garden Pests in Santa Cruz County (And How to Beat Them)
Every Santa Cruz County garden has pests. Our mild climate means they're active year-round without hard freezes to knock back populations. This guide covers the most common pests in local vegetable gardens (aphids, slugs, cabbage worms, whiteflies, tomato hornworms, squash bugs, spider mites, and flea beetles), how to identify them, and organic control methods that actually work.
Gopher Control: What Actually Works in Santa Cruz
If you've gardened in Santa Cruz County, you've met gophers. One day your tomato is thriving, the next it slides into the ground with roots chewed clean off. The internet is full of gopher control advice, much of it useless. This guide focuses on what actually works here: trapping (most effective), hardware cloth and gopher baskets (prevention), and what to skip entirely (vibrating stakes, gum, flooding).