There is a huge upsurge of public opinion going against the use of chemicals wherever possible. People are instead re-evaluating their grandmother’s old home remedies but they are not being given much encouragement from what I can see.
I guess that this is not unusual, given the enormous amount of money we spend every year on chemicals and the vested interests of the industry itself. A lot of the money we spend on chemicals is for cleaning and the killing of insects.
The majority of us use our insecticides in the house, but gardeners use even more of the substance outside killing the bugs that eat their flowers and their fruit. Would it not be wonderful if we could rediscover the way these things were done before the invention of chemical insecticides, some of which, like DEET, have admittedly been around for quite a long time – more than 60 years in the case of DEET.
The first thing a good gardener should endeavour to do is take care of the environment while tending his or her garden. After all, if the environment is right for your plants, then they will have a better likelihood of flourishing.
One of the best methods of doing this is by getting rid of the pests that eat or destroy your plants and the best way of doing this is by helping the predators that eat the bad bugs. Easier said than done, you might say.
However, if you generate the perfect environment, they will come. Two of the most widespread yet also two of the most voracious predators are ladybirds and earwigs. if you can get those to live in your garden then most of your insect problems will resolve themselves. You can encourage ladybirds by planting herbs such as fennel and dill, which they appear to like.
In order to encourage earwigs, grow dahlias. If you dot a dozen dahlias around your garden you will lure hundreds of earwigs, but put sharp sand around their base, because slugs and snails like them too.
Earwigs like to crawl under things, so leave a few potted plants about as well, but raise them off the ground a bit by standing the pots on a handful of gravel. This will give the earwigs somewhere to live and will assist with the drainage of the pot.
Depending on where you have your home, of course, the praying mantis is a first-class friend to have in the garden. These insects look scary and they really are scary to other insects. They will eat any insect they can get hold of, but they are perfectly safe for humans.
Lizards and frogs and toads are good allies to have as well. They too need somewhere to crawl under and flower pots or large stones are perfect. Put a few stones the size of footballs under your shrubbery or make a rockery for them to live in. However, cats will kill them, so it is a good idea to discourage cats from your garden.
