The misery of my pests increases

[Marb67]

I am still harvesting purple sprouting broccoli but I am noticing some of the leaves have not only thrip damage but some small oval shaped scale insect on them. Also, my garden is full of aphids and a lot of my leaves from last year's planting (beet chard) and other plants are bubbling and distorted. It's the same every year but this is worse because of the mild winter. Even in the house I have aphids on my lettuce and coriander leaves despite making sure there were no aphids on the plants when I bought them in.

As for chives/mint etc deterring aphids forget it. It's hogwash because my chives have aphids all over them. just waiting for my broad beans to start getting small black holes in them and start distorting as usual. It seems every year I get a new pest in such a small walled garden. Sprayed everything with seaweed as it is supposed to again deter pests but not for me it doesn't.

[Nicos]

There comes a point when you need to decide if you are going to be 100% organic...or selectively so.

Either way, you need to determine which crops do best for you and concentrate on those.
Those which the pests attack might be worth forgetting about...or follow firstly the route of companion planting or sacrificial planting, or just giving up altogether with those plants.

Different crops do better in different soil conditions and/or different climate conditions..or just not near you!


I could never grow crops affected by flee beatle in my last plot in NE Cheshire...here I have no probs with them!

Growing veg is a feeling for what is right for you/your garden/plot.
If you fight what comes naturally , you will face a fight.
Sometimes you win, and sometimes nature does!

I think I'm going to give up on rhubarb from now on.
On my last plot in Cheshire I could have fed the whole of my village in rhubarb jam and crumble for a year..here I'm lucky if I get 4 crumbles out of the same number of plants!

maybe fleece/nematodes might be a way forwards for you???

[Marb67]

Yes I have nematodes in the fridge in a pack. They have multi nematodes that deal with a few different types including thrip. I won't hold my breath though......

[roitelet]

I try to be as organic as possible, but there comes a time.........

[stubedo]

I don`t have aphids, but nematoads got rid of my terrible slug problem...

[Bill HH]

I noticed aphids on my leek seedlings today, I didn't think they attacked leeks! this is in the poly tunnel.

I also had them on a tumbler tomato in a basket in the poly. When I put it outside they left the same day. nature is a funny old thing.

It may or may not be some comfort to you to know that when the pests have eaten everything, they will leave.

[Penellype]

I had aphids on the young leaves of my Japanese maple earlier this year. I collected up some ladybirds and put them on hte plant, and gradually the aphid numbers decreased until they have now all gone. You can buy ladybirds as a biological control if you don't have any wild ones.

[shellyanne1987]

I've used a home made pest deterant that seems to be doing the job, chilli sauce, garlic powder and onion powder left to steep for a day then strained into a spray bottle, I've been using it a couple of weeks now and I'm starting to see a decline so must be working


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[taff]

You need to tey and encourage the predators if you want to be organic so.....have a look at your thrip etc predators and get them in