Blog

This week you’ll learn 3 Effec­tive Ways to Keep Pests off Your Plants, organically.

So, I was just going about my busi­ness, when I had the fright of my life. This lit­tle video above will show you the inspi­ra­tion for this arti­cle, and prob­a­bly make you laugh your head off too. Watch it now to see what I mean.

What does my toilet’s vis­i­tor have to do with keep­ing pests off your plants?

Well, when we began our gar­den, we had an inva­sion of slugs. ‘A bumper crop of slugs’, I called them in my arti­cle for The Per­ma­cul­ture Research Insti­tute. I planted a pun­net of bok choy, and not one plant survived.

The nat­ural sys­tems in my gar­den were only in infant stages; since then they’ve kicked into gear and I rarely have to bother with pick­ing cater­pil­lars off my pro­duce. As for slugs? I haven’t seen them since Novem­ber 2010 when we put in our first line of defense against pests: a frog pond.

Per­ma­cul­ture offers 3 very use­ful tips to help keep pests off your plants.

#1. Cre­ate a frog pond.

Not only will frogs take up res­i­dence and eat your bugs, you’ll also attract drag­on­flies, birds, and lizards to eat the pests in your gar­den. It’s about work­ing with nature instead of against it. And it works. It really does. Trust me! After our frogs moved in, I haven’t lost my plants to pests. And, the frogs bring me more delight than I ever imagined.

#2. Build your soil to feed your plants.

Healthy plants have a nat­ural defense against pests. When we moved in, I bought some expen­sive top­soil for my gar­den. What I didn’t under­stand was it was dead. There was no evi­dence of lit­tle micro-organisims liv­ing in it, and those lit­tle guys are what make the nutri­ents in soil avail­able to your plants. As a result, my seedlings were badly defi­cient of nutri­ents, and the slugs moved in to take out the weak plants.

Micro-organisims need feed­ing, and they love to eat organic mat­ter. So pile on ani­mal manures, com­post, grass clip­pings, green leaves and mulch, mulch, mulch with things like ordi­nary hay, lucerne hay or sug­ar­cane mulch.

Also add rock min­er­als and liq­uid fer­tilis­ers to your soil, such as worm juice and sea­weed fer­tiliser to feed your plants and make them healthy to fight off pests and dis­eases. Much like we can avoid being attacked by viruses when our immune sys­tem is strong from a nutri­tious diet full of vit­a­mins and min­er­als. Build you soil with organic mat­ter to make your plants healthy and strong.

#3. Plant flow­ers to attract ben­e­fi­cial insects.

Mono-cropping is the mod­ern day equiv­a­lent of smok­ing in the 50s. Everyone’s doing it but it doesn’t make sense. On the other hand, Per­ma­cul­ture is about repli­cat­ing the nat­ural sys­tems we see in nature, and nowhere do we see a 1000 acre field of wheat with­out human intervention.

Think of your plot like a meadow, or a for­est, with a diverse range of plants and species. Plant flow­ers amongst your veg­gies to attract insects like the hov­er­flies, who feasts on aphids. Most ben­e­fi­cial insects have very small mouths, so plant flow­ers that are small enough for them get a meal from, par­tic­u­larly flower from the car­rot and daisy families.

The Good Bug Mix from Green Har­vest is a great ready made mix of seed to attract good bugs to your gar­den. They’ll hap­pily feast on the meatier foods in your gar­den (the pests) at the same time.

In Sum­mary…

That’s why I don’t mind shar­ing my loo with a green tree frog, even if he does give me a fright. And why it brings a huge grin to my face when Jeremiah’s bel­lows rever­ber­ate through the drain-pipe.

I know my task-force is out and about, well and truly happy, mak­ing my life eas­ier and much more reward­ing in the gar­den. Not only are they delight­ful, cute and enter­tain­ing, they are mak­ing a meal of things that would oth­er­wise be mak­ing a meal of my plants.

 

Wel­come, frogs legs in the loo, you can stay as long as you like.

Click to Tweet this week’s Tweet­able and share these 3 tips with your friends! (This is super sim­ple, I’ve pre­pared the tweet for you, just click the link and it will open a new win­dow, then click Tweet!)
Please share this post with your friends and hit the ‘like’ but­ton so we can all make a pos­i­tive impact on the world by using less chem­i­cals, sprays and toxic pesticides.

What are some of the nat­ural, organic meth­ods you’ve used to keep pests off your plants? Leave a com­ment below!

Thanks, as always, for tak­ing time out to read, watch and share.
Nicola xx