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Tag: pest control

Home Improvement

Last year, this was my water chestnut pond. And it worked so well. In this little suburban garden I have so little space that everything has to be miniature, but the discipline of making every centimetre count has been an epiphany. Water chestnuts in one side, kang kong in the other, and as much of each as we could eat in its season. I still have a couple of tubs…

A small plant with light green lobed leaves and lots of small flowers with a single row of white petals around a yellow centre. Flowers are borne in clusters at the branch tips.

Garden Pharmacy – Feverfew

Feverfew is a pretty little perennial herb with flowers that look very much like chamomile. It’s is best known as a migraine preventative, and there is now some decent evidence that it works and is safe. Luckily I don’t get migraines. But there is also some evidence that it is useful as an antihistamine, and as a hayfever sufferer, that earns it a spot in my garden.

A close-up image of a broccolini head with 8 ladybeetles, 4 mating pairs, on it and another in the background.

Snacking on Aphids

The question I see come up more often than any other in garden forums is how to deal with pests. And I get it. Watching the aphids arrive right when your beautiful broccolini get to the stage where you don’t know if you want to eat it or photograph it is hard, especially in a small garden. It takes nerve to hold fire.

Water in a light cream coloured container with dozens of little black tadpoles in it, and some water chestnut reeds.

Mosquito Control

Striped Marsh Frogs moved in of their own accord. They don’t mind urban environments except that, like all frogs, they are highly sensitive to RoundUp ®. Use RoundUp to get rid of your bindii-eyes or lantana, and you end up having to use insecticide on your skin to ward off mosquitoes. And then snail bait. And then whatever it is they use against malaria plasmodiums and rat lung worm.

Nature red in tooth and claw

My broad beans have aphids. Judging by my social media, everyone else’s broadbeans have aphids too. The trigger with little insects stealing my food is they must die! But must they? Most of the ways of waging war on aphids involve either pollutants or a lot of effort. Is there something easier?