Growing your food through to harvest

Pest Control

Aphids, scale, and mites

Aphids are small insects that stick their sharp mouthparts into your mature plants and suck the sap out. They appear as clusters of tiny insects in a variety of colours and multiply rapidly, often blending in with the stem until you look closely. A branch of a plant starting to curl and look misshapen is a sign that you should inspect it for signs of infestation - sometimes you’ll also notice ants going up and down the plant, tending to and feeding from the aphids. The best treatment for these pests is prevention - a biodiverse garden with lots of flowers attracts ladybugs, the top predator of aphids, which can control small outbreaks.

However if you find them in your garden in large numbers there are two things you can do - cut the infested branch off and put it in the bin/compost immediately, or spray the leaves and stem top and bottom with a food garden friendly “white oil” solution of 1 Tbsp dishwashing liquid + 1/2 cup vegetable oil + 2 litres of water, to suffocate and dry out the aphids. Rinse the plant after an hour or so, to remove residues and dead aphids. This spray is also helpful against infestations of scale and mites, which act similarly to aphids. Whichever method you use, be very gentle when handling the infested plant, because many aphids protect themselves by dropping into the soil below, only to climb back up later and resume feasting!

If you keep on top of large aphid infestations, and plant a variety of companion flowers among your veggies, you may be lucky enough to employ the assistance of the ladybug - as soon as you have a healthy population, they’ll help to control any new infestations before they get out of hand. The cannot handle a large infestation on their own though - and looking for ladybugs to release in your garden is not recommended. They mostly fly away to establish their own territories, and are better off coming to you than being disturbed from their natural cycles. Work alongside the ladybug for best results, and make sure you maintain plenty of habitat year round.

Slaters and earwigs

Clear any mulch from around very small seedlings - slaters and earwigs hide in materials like leaf litter and compost, and come out at night to nibble on tender or decomposing vegetable matter. They're a very helpful clean up crew, until they mistake your seedlings for something they should eat! They don't like to cross bare ground, so pulling back the mulch creates a barrier that makes it less likely they'll eat your new plants. You can also cut a plastic bottle into 15cm wide rings and use them temporarily to create a further barrier against creepy crawlies until your plants are bigger.

If you’re dealing with an overpopulation of slaters or earwigs, you can trap them at night time - place either juiced citrus halves, or toilet rolls stuffed with peels of potatoes, carrots, or banana, into the garden at night, and in the morning, carefully dispose of the entire trap. You can humanely kill any pests you collect by putting the traps into a bag and freezing them before putting them in the bin.

Slugs and snails

Slugs and snails are no match for copper, magnesium, and sodium. We know that snails and slugs react badly to table salt, but this isn't the kindest option, plus adding salt to the garden would kill your plants! However, you can sprinkle Epsom (magnesium) salt over and around plants that are under heavy attack by slugs and snails when you see it happening - it doesn't kill them, but it's a deterrent that is safe to add to the garden, and doesn't harm your plants in small amounts. Ideally, you want to collect the snails and slugs by hand and put them into a bucket or container temporarily - you can keep their numbers in check by feeding them to fowl; freezing them and then putting them into the compost; or else taking them away from your property. If you have fowl, you can also let them in to the garden when it’s well grown, to take care of the slugs and snails - ducks and geese are the best for cleaning up large infestations.

If you're growing your food in pots or manufactured raised beds, you can buy adhesive copper tape, which is an effective barrier that slugs and snails can't cross - we use this to protect our nursery very effectively. Make sure that the surface is clean and dry before installing the tape as smoothly as possible without air pockets, which can collect water and cause the tape to peel off.

Cabbage White Butterfly

Cabbage White butterfly caterpillars are a real problem for gardeners hoping for a good harvest of brassicas (plants in the mustard family, e.g. broccoli, cabbage, kale, rocket, bok choi). You can prevent the Cabbage White from laying too many eggs on your vegetables by adding sage to the garden, which repels it, and planting land cress, which is more attractive to the butterfly (and poisonous to the larvae!). Letting brassicas go to flower nearby also repels the butterfly, as they mistake the pale flowers for other butterflies, and prefer to look for somewhere less crowded. A biodiverse garden also attracts wasps, which will spend all day in the veggie patch hunting for caterpillars, ensuring you only end up with a few small holes in your leaves.

While they’re getting established, its highly recommended to either check the leaves daily for caterpillars and remove them by hand, or cover your brassicas with wildlife-friendly netting. Nets are considered wildlife-friendly if the holes are too small for you to get your finger through them - we want to prevent birds and bats getting tangled in anything we put in the garden, so always do this test before you buy garden netting!