If you have taken the great step of growing your own garden without the use of unnatural pesticides and any non-organic products then you may find that you quickly gather insect issues. These pests could quickly eat up all your plants and ruin your garden completely! However not all insects are bad so you don’t want to crack and buy a pesticide to indiscriminately kill them all.
One of the first things you need to do is improve the strength of your plants so that they are better equipped to resist and survive insect attack. If you wanted to strengthen a building then you would first look at the foundations and the same goes with plants. Mix some high quality organic compost into the soil and make sure you water them as much as is needed. Also over the fall make sure you mix in dome of your organic matter such as dead leaves, old dead plants and even some organic kitchen waste into the soils, This will break down over the winter and give much stronger nutrient packed soil for the spring growth.
Ideally you also need to breed diversity in your garden. Rotating crops and even resting certain patches in your garden will keep the soil full of nutrients. You also want to make sure that you plant many herbs around your normal plants as these repel a lot of insects, completely naturally! Also the herbs make an awesome addition to your recipes and fresh herbs are great for your health!
As mentioned before not all insects are bad. The most common pest that you will find in your garden is aphids. They live under the leaves of your plants and can really mess things up. Ladybugs love eating them though so you want as many as you can in your garden. You can actually find ladybugs in local hedgerows in the spring and it may be worth getting a little match box and bringing some back…. I am sure they will be thankful!
Also cretins wasps like eating annoying little pests too so don’t worry if you find them coming to your garden (unless you have allergies). They can be attracted by planting carrots or caraway.
