Dealing with Peskies Mechanically

Mechanical methods include the physical removal of pests.  For example, aphids can be hosed off of leaves rather easily.  Yes they may climb back up there, but if you stay at it a few days in a row there's a decent chance they will give up.

Another example - vine-borers.  These are nasty things.  They are little evil worms that bore into your squash or pumpkin (and sometimes cucumber) vines and dine voraciously.  It's obvious very quickly when you have one as the leaf at the end of that vine will promptly wilt.  Since they are inside the stem of your plant, there's no use spraying anything - so go ahead and get a garden knife or pruner, cut that stem off at it's base, slit the stem open and look until you find the detestable creature, and then gain great satisfaction from stomping the life out of it.

In some cases you may get an infestation on just one plant - usually the one on the end of the row or edge of the garden.  I have had situations when literally - just one plant - is very quickly overcome but there's no sign of problems on the adjacent plants.  Assess the situation quickly, but it might be more beneficial to sacrifice the one plant and dispose of it as far away from your garden as possible in order to keep the problem from spreading.

Sometimes you may experiment with growing a particular type of vegetable or ornamental plant, only to discover that a certain pest is prevalent in your area and will always attack that type of plant no matter what you try.  This is where I step back and consider the big picture.  Many vegetable plants we grow these days are not native to our location.  Even the ones that are native in origin have often been bred to no longer resemble the plants that were once native.  In some cases certain plants aren't quite suited to our garden environment and may always struggle to thrive, therefore inviting pests to come take advantage of the situation.  The way I look at it, if a plant variety just isn't going to be happy to grow in your garden, or if the same pests repeatedly take it over time and time again - you've got 2 choices.  1 - douse it with chemicals, or 2 - give it up.  I'd rather eat vegetables that have not been doused with chemicals, and I'd rather not introduce harmful chemicals into my garden environment.  It is way more worth it to me to stick with the things that grow well than to go against my conscience trying to convince any plant to thrive when the odds are against it. 

Mechanical methods of pest removal can be very effective if you are vigilant with inspecting your garden closely and you are consistent in your removal of anything suspicious.  This method is certainly worth a first try, even if you choose to move onto other remedies.