It’s become a nightly ritual. As the sun sets and I put the cat out to wee (he’s not incontinent, just needs some encouraging), I grab the torch and a cup and start my daily war against pests. The slimy, creeping, hosta devastating kind. Those with motor homes and those without, all get snatched up from their juicy morsal and thrown into the cup with their friends, colleagues and others. Sitting in the upturned cup all night, trapped, unable to escape, they wait. Until morning, when I once again scurry down the garden, but this time full cup in hand, chicken coop in sight. The unfortunates that were caught the previous evening are soon gobbled down quickly and happily, and as the sun draws in again, the torch is grabbed, the empty cup retrieved and the constant battle starts again.<\/p>\n
By far I have found that this method is the best control of these slimy beasts. Slug pellets work to some extent but leave dead, slimy masses and fill the garden with highly toxic chemicals that shouldn’t be there. Goodness only knows why we bring these toxins into our garden when a simply late night jaunt around the garden can do just as well.<\/p>\n
Organic pest control means no pesticides, no insecticides, no chemicals of any kind, and whilst that may sound scary, nature has a funny way of taking over once these are absent. Of course, you’re not going to have outrageously un-natural petunia’s without a hole in them, your hosta’s won’t look like colinders, but fill you garden full of chemicals and you’ll have pretty plants but nothing else. No birds, no busying bee’s, no pretty red ladies devouring stray aphids. Surely leaving it to nature, and giving an extra helping hand, is the best bet?<\/p>\n
Aphids can be controlled very easily with fairy liquid. Though of course a chemical in itself, it won’t kill all insects and made up in a mist sprayer you can simply jet your aphid colonies until their gone. Encouraging lacewings and ladybirds into the garden will also help. Make sure that when gardening you look out for them, taking care not to squash young grubs, or statically growing cocoons.<\/p>\n
Whenever I find caterpillars in my garden, as long as they’re not an etremely large army marching over my favourite plant, I leave them. I have forgotten to prune some severely untended suckers on my rose, and under investigation discovered they were covered in caterpillars. I could have cut them, but I didn’t, and hey presto a few days later a pair of sparrows sat stripping the juicy load to take back to their nestlings.<\/p>\n The more you encourage wildlife into your garden, or vegetable patch, the less you’ll have to do in pest control. Squat frogs and toads will relish undergrowth critters, hedgehogs will snack at slugs and snails, and even wasps will inject and carry of tiresome caterpillars to feed to their young. Take time to think about your gardening actions, kill a caterpillar colony and they’re gone, leave them and there’ll be some very thankful fledgelings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s become a nightly ritual. As the sun sets and I put the cat out to wee (he’s not incontinent, just needs some encouraging), I grab the torch and a cup and start my daily war against pests. The slimy, creeping, hosta devastating kind. Those with motor homes and those without, all get snatched up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1013],"tags":[42,78,202,273,305,330,332,379,384,395,396,412,523,524,579],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i103.photobucket.com\/albums\/m138\/AnthonyTroy\/Gardening\/LadybirdCocoon.jpg\")
Try to leave ladybird cocoons to let your population soar<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i103.photobucket.com\/albums\/m138\/AnthonyTroy\/Gardening\/P6160048.jpg\")
Caterpillars will made juicy food for nestlings.<\/em><\/p>\n