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Gardening Naturally


Who doesn't want to invite pollinators into the garden and reduce the amount of pests at the same time? Hard to achieve this goal when we use broad-range insecticides in the garden. So how to achieve this? The answer lies in the word: balance.


When everything is in balance, there are plenty pollinators and beneficial insects in your backyard, and not so many pests. Beneficial insects are those that feed on pests - like ladybirds that feed on aphids. Did you know a ladybird can eat 50 - 60 aphids in one day? They will also eat a variety of other insects and larvae including scales, mealy bugs, leaf hoppers, mites, and various types of soft-bodied insects.

To achieve this garden balance, we need to work with nature, rather than against her. It's about making small changes which can have a ripple effect. If using harmful pesticides, they can harm not only our health and that of our family, but also the environment too.


Let's look at some best practices to keep the balance in the garden:

 


Slimey Critters

Slugs and snails can be lethal to newly planted seedlings. We see potential food, but so do they. Nom, nom and your seedling can be severely diminished in a couple nights' fine slug dining. Slug bait is pretty toxic (greenish/blueish), not only to your food crops, but to anything that comes into contact with it - slugs, snails, soil and your food! A tweak could see you using Tui Garden Products "Quash" (usually available at the supermarket for around $7-9). A little sprinkle of the yellow pellets around new plantings will deal to the slimey guys easily without poisoning your soil or your food. Quash's active ingredient is chelated iron, and this is what causes slimey guys to slime out and die. We can handle a bit of iron in our food, so this is a far better option. Better yet, it is not toxic to birds or wildlife who nibble on the dead slimey guys.


Another good practice is to do nightly slug and snail hunts. This is when they come out of their hidey holes to do their foraging when it is dark. Don your head torch and head out in the garden to pluck them off your crops - if you have chooks, pop them into a closed bucket to feed them the next morning. If you're French, you could perhaps make escargot for dinner the next night. If not, you need to stomp on them so they don't live to feed on another of your newly planted delicate seedlings.

 

Sucking insects

Aphids, whitefly and other insects that suck on the veggie plants can severely effect their health and so a good spray regime will help with eliminating these pests. I make up a mixture of neem to deal to them. I purchase my neem soap from a Trade Aid store. Neem comes from the Neem tree grown in India. It breaks down the exoskeleton of insects.

Non-toxic Insecticide Spray Recipe:

Grate the Neem soap. Keep in a closed jar.

Take a tablespoon of grated neem and place in a bowl, cover it with 2 cups hot water and whisk till incorporated. Leave to set like a jelly. Keep this in a separate closed jar and label.

Next, when ready to spray, take a quarter cup of the neem jelly and place in a spray bottle. Fill it with water and shake to mix. Add a quarter/half tspn olive oil to the bottle and shake. Spray this under the leaves of your veggies to eliminate white fly infestation or aphids. Don't spray in the heat of sunshine, but rather later in the day. You may need to keep an eye on the infestation and apply another spray or two as and when needed.

Scale insects are another sucking insect pest. To me, they look like mini headless turtles clinging to your branches of trees. Scale insects fix themselves to leaves and stems and suck sap from the tree. Their waste products are a sweet honeydew that ants and wasps will feed on readily. The sticky honeydew will also encourage moulds such as sooty mould. The best method to deal with them is to use your nail or small stick to detach them from the branch. Keep a eye out to see if they are present if you see a trail of ants going into your tree. Be vigilant. You could also try Neem spray to break down the exoskeleton of future generations.


 

Weeds

I have tried this weed killer recipe before and comes straight off the internet.

Natural Weed Killer Recipe

Combine ingredients in a spray bottle and treat weeds at the sunniest time of day for best results. Acetic acid in the vinegar and the salt are both very good at drawing moisture from weeds. Dish soap acts as a surfactant, which is an agent that will reduce the surface tension that can cause the weed-killing concoction to bead on the leaves instead of being absorbed by the plant.

I would caution against using too much of this as too much salt can be toxic to soil life. I like to use my Wonder Weeder (GOK stocks them periodically) to weed vast tracts of weeds which I store in large reusable bags for 3 months or more before adding to the compost bin (to ensure the weed seeds don't proliferate in the compost).


If you don't have time to make up your own DIY sprays, you can purchase weed and insecticide sprays from your local hardware or nursery BUT try to look for an organic spray and stay away from glyphosate sprays (real hormone disruptors) like Round Up. Whoever said growing food with toxic poison was a good idea??

And in ending, I would like to add that to create balance, you need to plant attractors. Research what bees like to forage on, what attracts ladybirds to the garden, provide a source of water to hydrate the birds and watch the balance restore itself, with minimal input from you. Create a little Space for Nature, click on the link and it's free to join!

Ka ki te ano.









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