know who your friends are
One ladybird eats 5000 greenfly in its life. Keep a patch of nettles for them to breed in. Hedgehogs and frogs eat slugs Make a small pile of logs for them to hide in. Dig a mini pond on your veggie plot and you might get frog spawn
Beetles and centipedes eat slugs, caterpillars, Carrot fly and Ladybirds more! They like lots of organic compost or wood chip in the soil, so start making your own compost.
Hoverfly and lacewigs eat aphids and greenfly. Attract them by planting Californian poppies, marigolds or poach egg plants near your veg.
Birds Friend or Foe some will eat your crops or disturb them to frighten off Foe birds: Old cassette tape strung tightly between poles. Tie, plastic bags, etc that move and rustle / old CD’s on string. Have fun making a scarecrow!
Foes Caterpillars
Keep your eyes open for yellow caterpillar eggs and squash them. Also take off any caterpillars.
Slugs & snails Plant slug resistant plant like lamb’s lettuce, endives, red cabbage and onions. Go slug, snail hunting -collect them up and take them a long way away! Make slug beer traps - put old yoghurt or margarine tubs into the ground near to plants eaten by slugs, and keep them topped up with beer. Bury the dead slugs Keep soil around plants clear from old leaves & weeds where they can hide. You can buy organic slug killer ‘nemaslug’ made of tiny nematodes which kills baby slugs underground avoid using pellets which harm birds, cats, foxes and hedgehogs.
Cabbage root fly
Put a square of old carpet underlay close around roots of cabbages to stop the flies laying eggs. Greenfly, blackly and aphids Cover leafy crops with old net curtains or special horticultural fleece. Cut off the tops of aphid infested broad beans. Spray with an insecticidal soap- it gets into the flies and drowns them. Squash aphids as soon as you see them. Carrot root fly Sow carrots in early June to avoid the flies Plant alternate 4 rows of onions to 2 rows of carrots. The strong smell will help stop carrot flies sniffing out your carrots. You can also plant linum (flax) which helps with carrot fly. Sow seeds very thinly so you don’t have to thin the seedlings out - carrot flies will sniff out disturbed carrots. Plant the fly resistant ‘Flyaway’ carrot variety. Put a fly proof mesh fence, 50 to 75cm high around your carrots
