This years garden is off to a beautiful start. Lots of rain, 2 and 3rd year established plants are looking hardy, (please no hail storms tearing everything apart this year!!), the soil looks rich. Every year we get the garden ready, promise ourselves it will be a garden and lawn without chemicals added. And I would say, just about every years we have been about 90% committed to that promise. Organic fertilizers have been great and effective. We are fairly resigned to a quantity of clover in the lawn- accept when I have stepped on bees slurping on the clover flowers. (then you hear me cursing it)
One of the things that gets us every year is pests... errr! I try all sorts of natural remedies to try and get them out, kill them off, whatever. But what might work once or twice seems to stop working- like the cayenne oil, seems to loose its effectiveness by morning when the dew has dripped off.
Today I stumbled upon this article at Gardenaut. There were a few suggestions that I hadn't tried like the crushed egg shells to trip up wandering slugs. I like that because its two good things at once, stopping the slugs and adding a little more nutrients to the soil. And soapy water spray is here too, and I have heard that Ecover dish soap works great as well as Dr. Bronners.
Getting rid of grubs is another problem. We try and try, and while I'd love to let the city skunks have them all for dinner, I don't appreciate all the holes they leave around. So I am going again, gonna try for 100% chemical free garden, and thanks to the internet will have a load of recipes and remedies to try and try again.
One of the things that gets us every year is pests... errr! I try all sorts of natural remedies to try and get them out, kill them off, whatever. But what might work once or twice seems to stop working- like the cayenne oil, seems to loose its effectiveness by morning when the dew has dripped off.
Today I stumbled upon this article at Gardenaut. There were a few suggestions that I hadn't tried like the crushed egg shells to trip up wandering slugs. I like that because its two good things at once, stopping the slugs and adding a little more nutrients to the soil. And soapy water spray is here too, and I have heard that Ecover dish soap works great as well as Dr. Bronners.
Getting rid of grubs is another problem. We try and try, and while I'd love to let the city skunks have them all for dinner, I don't appreciate all the holes they leave around. So I am going again, gonna try for 100% chemical free garden, and thanks to the internet will have a load of recipes and remedies to try and try again.
I've heard interspersing rosemary plants amongst your other plants can act to deter the buggies. Though I've never had success growing it.