Pests Vs Beneficial Wildlife

[Sara]

Hi there,

Here at GYO we've been thinking about the creatures on our plots, from slugs to bees. We'd love to hear how you all get a balance between beneficial wildlife and veg-munching pests.

What's your opinion? Do you encourage frogs to snack on slugs? Maybe your flowers attract pollinators but fruit is netted to keep birds away. Let us know which of the creatures on your plot are loved or loathed!




Your comments may be edited and published in the January issue of GYO.

[BertieFox]

Almost all wildlife is beneficial, to the environment, if not to us. The exception I'd make is for alien creatures and plants which have been introduced by man and which disturb the natural balance. (Japanese knotweed, Asian hornets, varroa mite etc etc.)
Slugs and snails clear up a mass of rotting material as well as our succulent plants; most insect 'pests' are the basic food for numerous birds and other predatory species.
I've read a lot about the 'balance' that organic gardening is supposed to achieve but in the UK we always found it impossible when your neighbours at home or on the allotment are all using chemicals and disrupting that balance. Neither the pest nor the predator knows human boundaries so their chemicals kill our predators.
The real difference came when we arrived here and were fortunate enough to have a huge garden surrounded by forest and pasture. Although in the first couple of years we were plagued by flea beetle, Colorado beetle on the spuds, asparagus beetles, whitefly and greenfly, carrot root fly.... by using organic methods and growing masses of wild flowers and things like Phacelia for pollinators, we seem to have got pests to a level where we rarely notice them. We hand picked the Colorado beetles and squidged the grubs for two years and they are now eradicated. As nobody else grows spuds nearby we should be clear for some years.
The one pest which is a major problem is the snail. They are everywhere and all you can do is hand pick them and carry them away so far they don't come back. I must admit that I have had to resort to slug pellets on the staging of the polytunnel as no matter how carefully you remove them, some hide away and devastate young seedlings and small plants overnight. I am careful to remove the dying snails somewhere where the birds can't get at them though.
So I'd say the best way to use this approach to eliminate pests is to get as many of your neighbours as possible to adopt the same methods, so your plot is part of an organically managed 'whole'. The trouble is so many people regard anything other than straight rows of vegetables and meticulously weeded flower plots as 'untidy' that it is difficult to attract sufficient predator species.

[Kestrel]

The exception I'd make is for alien creatures and plants which have been introduced by man and which disturb the natural balance.

I agree totally, in principle, and garden organically myself. Lots of single bloom flowers (attractive to me as well as pollinators), hand picking of slugs and snails, netting appropriately etc.; . However, to talk of the introduction of non-natives as one of the problems is a double-edged sword as it would leave our plots largely bereft. The vast majority of fruit and veg we grow has been introduced and so have many of the beneficial flowers (including phacelia). You do sound fortunate enough to be isolated from near neighbours but I do not have that luxury. It does not stop me from trying to do it the organic way myself and to hope that I can set a small example to my neighbours - most of whom, now, are also trying to be wildlife friendly. I think there has been a significant tipping point in the last few years, after all, the non-organic way is also more expensive. I do hope that this trend continues.

[hawthorns]

well im just about to start a project on my plot which will hopefully encourage `friendly` bugs to conquer the pests, im going to build a wildlife stack. it will be constructed with pallets. 6 months ago i used an old tin bath as a pond to encourage frogs and toads to keep an eye on the growing slug problem. finally this autumn i have planted some spring bulbs (crocus and snow drops) to bring bees into the plot.

[mothhawk]

The one pest which is a major problem is the snail. They are everywhere and all you can do is hand pick them and carry them away so far they don't come back.

Excuse me?!! How can that be?! You live in France. Put them in a box and offer them to the neighbours as a packed lunch!

[Sara]

Let us know how you get on with the wildlife stack, Hawthorns. We'd love to hear which creatures turn up on your plot!

[hawthorns]

will do. will be continuing to build up the stack this weekend. will take pics as im building it

[planetologist]

Serendipitously, this was a quote I found on Energy Bulletin last week
What we found was that if you don’t hold the natural forces back they are going to work for you.
Adam Davis
Food & agriculture - Oct 22 | Energy Bulletin

That is to say, I myself also suffer from the general cultural blind spot of our time in the overdeveloped world that everything has to happen fast and be managed, but I like to think it helps to be at least to be aware the blind spot is there. There's so much still to be worked out, e.g. the size of larder I need to tide me over the times when it takes slightly longer for nature to restore the balance. And I'm not advocating a complete hands off approach either, nature is me as well.

In addition to the points already mentioned, I'd also advocate going with the flow. Sure, I net some things, but I've found it's almost impossible to keep the blackbirds out of the cherry tree, so it's easier to grow blackcurrants that provide fruit at the same time and that they hardly eat at all.

[binley100]

Brassicas are netted against pigeons, most fruit is in a fruit cage which has been opened up for the winter. Alliums are fleeced against the allium leaf miner . Marigolds are grown in my asparagus bed to hopefully repel the asparagus beetle whilst attracting bees. I'm now cultivating a small frog army with the pond I put in to hopefully keep on top of the snug population. I know that some of the bad guys do have a place in the grand scheme of things but there's nothing so dispiriting as finding your carefully tended to vegetabes have been noshed beyond redemption.

[VirginVegGrower]

I don't spray. I leave it to nature. My only helping hands are nasturtiums and tagetes, which I plant with gay abandon all over my plot. My broad beans always end up frilly with the pea/bean weevil but it's a look I've got used to. I net against pigeon damage and cabbage white butterflies, but I will never spray nasty chemicals to eradicate pests. I want my fruit and veg unsullied.

[kathyd]

I kind of believe that all the bugs in my garden, goodies and baddies, were probably there long before I was and have just as much of a right - if not more! - to be there than me. That said, I tried not doing anything in our new garden for a while, but ended up with chaos and decimation, so now I'm netting brassicas - which doesn't help with slugs of course, and which caterpillars are still finding their way into - and I netted my strawberries.

I've used landscaping fabric to reclaim areas of grazing land, and although I worried about it at first, I've found it's created a whole new environment for bugs and slow worms and adders, so I no longer feel guilty.

We already have beneficial slow worms, toads, chickens etc, but they don't seem to be coping with the slugs and snails, so I'm afraid I've resorted to slug pellets, although I'm using the 'bio' ones. Crushed egg shells, yoghurt pots of beer, prickly leaves - none of these seemed to work against the slugs, but bottle cloches over individual plants did help until the plants got big enough to cope with a bit of chomping. Also keeping seedlings on hanging shelves in the tunnel seemed to protect them from most serious damage.

I've got cardboard and grass cuttings down to form a flower border next year, where I can plant lots of lovely pollinator-attracting flowers, and my veggie beds were over-run with nasturtians and calendulas and phaecelia all summer this year. And we're just about to start building a huge pond, which should help encourage even more of the good guys - along with more midges I suppose, but then they're food for the bats!

The only thing I ever spray is a mild bio washing up liquid solution onto aphids in places where fierce jets of water would be too damaging - fragile plants, and in the polytunnel. Next year I'm planning greater use of garlic and mint and other smelly herbs to try to confuse and deter pests of all kinds, including mice!