Dec 11
17
What To Do Before Trying Natural Insecticide
Most gardeners and even commercial crop growers are very pleased with themselves if they take a step back from using chemical insecticides and go back to using natural, old-fashioned insecticides. And it is true, they have, but did you know that there is yet another step back too? A step backward in time that does not involve spraying of any kind at all.
So, here are a couple of techniques to try before using natural pesticide.
If you are having trouble with slugs, half bury a few jam jars in your flower beds and pour some beer into them, about two or three inches deep. Slugs do not mind about the type of the beer. It can be cider, lager or beer; it can be left-overs or flat. Slugs are acutely addicted to beer and they will drink themselves into a stupor, fall into the beer and die.
Even if there are a dozen dead slugs in the beer, other slugs will still come and drink from there. Empty the jars every day or they start to smell and replenish with beer for that night’s party. You can quickly reduce your garden’s slug population in this manner.
If you are having problems with ants of any species, you could buy a container of nematodes. These are tiny insects that live in the ground and feed on any insects in the soil that they come across.
Ants and termites are a natural source of food. Nematodes can clear a nest in a week or two. Buy them from a farming or garden centre, mix them with rain water and tip the water over trouble areas.
Natural predators are a very useful means of controlling pest insects. Harmless lizards and snakes are good for this job. However, cats will kill these animals. My neighbour’s two cats have emptied the surrounding gardens of lizards in the last six months alone.
Whereas I used to see lizards hunting every day, I have not seen any for days. This will impinge on our plants unfavorably, so from now on those cats are not welcome in our garden.
Cats will also scare birds from coming into a garden and birds eat hundreds or insects a week each. I still have a lot of birds in the garden, but they only hunt in the rose bushes now where the cats fear to go.
You can try growing the plants that you would use as natural insecticides in among the plants that you would use them on. For example, greenfly do not like garlic and some gardeners spray their rose bushes with crushed garlic and water, but you can get the same result from planting garlic under your roses. One garlic is not sufficient, you will have to have half a dozen or more per bush, but what is wrong with that? You can eat or sell the garlic.
Wireworms can be lured into tin cans and disposed of. Take a large can, put in a layer of vegetable peelings and punch holes in the sides of it with a screw driver. Empty it every couple of days.
There are a lot more ways of killing or repelling pests in the garden without using any kind of pesticide at all, but you will have to look for those yourself.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is currently involved with Terro Ant Bait. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our web site at Killing Carpenter Ants.
Related Reading:
London Gardens Walk - design & history tourThis eBook provides a guide to (1) gardens, parks and landscapes in Central London (2) garden-related exhibits in the British Museum (3) the history of Western garden design from prehistoric times to the present day. The list of London gardens to visit is linked to garden descriptions on the Gardenvisit.com website, which Tom Turner edits. He is also the author of books on Asian gardens (2010), European gardens (2011) and British gardens (December 2012). Table of Contents for London gardens walk: 1. Introduction and Travel Information; 2. Garden History Guide (style diagrams and illustrations guide the reader through 4000 years of western garden design); 3. London Landscape Design History (design ideas, often from gardens, have influenced London’s urban design and landscape architecture since Roman times); 4. British Museum Garden History Tour (a plan of the Museum shows how to find 21 objects which illuminate the history of garden and landscape design since antiquity); 5. London Gardens Walk (a map and guide take the visitor through examples representing the last 700 years of English garden design). 6. Timeline of Objects and Places (drawn from 4000 years of western garden history); 7. Further Information: books, websites, etc). The eBook has approximately 100 images, 7,000 words and two walking maps. ISBN 9780954230616
