I'll put the kettle on! Fig rolls okay?
No, I have many years yet to serve on my sentence - and they keep increasing them the older I get!
Poppies and Basil
Moderators: KG Steve, Chantal, Tigger, peter
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Jenny Green
- KG Regular
- Posts: 1139
- Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:47 pm
- Location: East Midlands
(Formerly known as 'Organic Freak')
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
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madasafish
- KG Regular
- Posts: 372
- Joined: Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:51 pm
- Location: Stoke On trent
Interesting.
We have about .5 acre garden with fields on 2 sides. At the front - south facing - I often grow dahlias which become covered in blackfly harvested by ants.
I no longer spray with anything but soap solution (no insecticides in garden at all) and crush blackfly by hand running up dahlia stems once/week.
At the rear garden I grow fruit, more flowers and tomatoes and peppers. Minimal fly infestation as well.. but I cannot grow any brassicas without spraying due to huge numbers of white butterflies which lay eggs on them.. caterpillars galore.
I found our aphid problems disappeared when we removed the sycamore tree which seemd to be the major source.. other trees are oak/birch etc..
So perhaps a careful look at your trees and what flies they support may be of use?
(We have load of slugs/snails from the marshy filed so combatting them is a different issue).
ladybirds are evident but not huge numbers.. lots of all types of tits(longtailed, blue,black,great etc)which love aphids.
We have about .5 acre garden with fields on 2 sides. At the front - south facing - I often grow dahlias which become covered in blackfly harvested by ants.
I no longer spray with anything but soap solution (no insecticides in garden at all) and crush blackfly by hand running up dahlia stems once/week.
At the rear garden I grow fruit, more flowers and tomatoes and peppers. Minimal fly infestation as well.. but I cannot grow any brassicas without spraying due to huge numbers of white butterflies which lay eggs on them.. caterpillars galore.
I found our aphid problems disappeared when we removed the sycamore tree which seemd to be the major source.. other trees are oak/birch etc..
So perhaps a careful look at your trees and what flies they support may be of use?
(We have load of slugs/snails from the marshy filed so combatting them is a different issue).
ladybirds are evident but not huge numbers.. lots of all types of tits(longtailed, blue,black,great etc)which love aphids.
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Primrose
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As Madasafish has found, trees & hedges can be a terrible source of aphids and caterpillars. I grow gooseberry bushes on the other side of the fence to our neighbour's fairly tall hedge. Last year it was absolutely seething with caterpillars which were dropping off onto my fruit bushes. With 24 hours they'd virtually stripped them of all their leaves before I'd even realised. For some reason the birds don't seem to like this particular type of caterpillar so natural predation doesn't work.
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Jenny Green
- KG Regular
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- Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:47 pm
- Location: East Midlands
I have a willow tunnel and igloo which supports colonies of aphids, but then it's also a great breeding ground for ladybirds, and birds eat the aphids off the twigs in the winter (forgot about this last year and pruned them all off in the autumn 
). It's hard sometimes to strike a balance between encouraging beneficial and non-beneficial wildlife.
Madasafish, I gave up trying to get rid of all the things that live on brassicas and now grow them under fleece all through the summer. I have to take it off the brocolli in the autumn but by then the cabbage whites are on their way out anyway. I hope to build some permanent cages for this year.
). It's hard sometimes to strike a balance between encouraging beneficial and non-beneficial wildlife.
Madasafish, I gave up trying to get rid of all the things that live on brassicas and now grow them under fleece all through the summer. I have to take it off the brocolli in the autumn but by then the cabbage whites are on their way out anyway. I hope to build some permanent cages for this year.
(Formerly known as 'Organic Freak')
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
Several years ago I had a nasty outbreak of a particularly vicious caterpillar on a rosa hugonis, which ate through every single flower bud for two years. I thought it was a long time coming into flower, but it wasn't until I looked really carefully at it one year and saw all the tiny deformed buds each with a hole in, that I realised what the problem was. We then hung peanut feeders near it, making use of a tip that tits eat aphis and caterpillars while they are waiting their turn at the peanuts. Certainly seemed to work, as the rose has flowered beautifully every year since.
Alison.
Alison.