Natural pesticides and fertilisers – easier than you think
ECO GARDEN
Many of us want to garden the organic way, but when it comes to replacing chemical fertilisers and pesticides with natural alternatives, the options aren’t always clear.
But as so many garden centres and shops now sell products proclaiming their organic ingredients, especially since some chemical-based brands have been withdrawn from sale, it is becoming easier to make a choice.
There are several ways that an organic gardener would tackle soil fertility. Compost, particularly home made, is the first option. You may not want to dig, and many organic gardeners think that digging is of no benefit to either the plot or your back, but it is necessary to fork in some organic matter to replenish the soil, particularly if the soil is poor or heavy.
Leaf mould provides some nutrients and is a good addition to the soil but is not as full of richness as compost or manure. It works well as a mulch, suppressing weeds.
Green manure, where you grow a crop such as clovers, mustard or winter field beans on a plot in the autumn and dig it over the following spring before they set seed, is another way of getting nutrients into the soil, but this works best on a vegetable patch and really is not for a garden border already packed with plants.
Processed organic materials such as hoof and horn and bonemeal will provide nitrogen and phosphate supplements respectively over a period of time. Dried blood is a faster acting source of nitrogen for plants.
There are liquid fertilisers available now, but you can make your own. Grow some comfrey in a corner, and steep some in water in a bucket. The result is a good, easy home made fertiliser.
Old countrymen would tell you to steep sheep droppings in a bucket of water, then drain it off and use it as a good liquid feed for the garden.
Comfrey feed – soak the leaves in water and dilute one part mixture with ten parts water and then use as a liquid on plants - a wonderful and traditional organic option
Seaweed is another good organic fertiliser and can be produced at home in the same way, but many of us don’t have a natural source of the
What you can do to improve your soil and plants – the organic way
or hoof and horn
available
dilute one part concentrate to 10 parts water
How to attack pests the organic way
stuff, so luckily there are proprietary seaweed products available to do the job.
Low level screens around blocks of carrots helps prevent the carrot fly from laying its eggs there, and horticultural fleece around brassicas will also help deter insect pests.
Beer traps for slugs are thought to be the one of the best methods of dealing with them, but there are also the copper band strips that you can buy to put round pots to stop them from crawling up and into the pot overnight. Crushed egg or oyster shells laid around plants are another deterrent as slugs don’t like crawling over them.
In greenhouses sticky fly traps have long been used. Many gardeners are now switching to biological controls of pests, as Country Gardener featured in the last issue. Packs of small parasitic nematodes will attack the pests, and can be ordered to arrive by post.
Dilute with water and apply to affected plant areas. There are various types of biological controls suited to different problems, whether it is slugs, greenhouse whitefly, vine weevils in pots or ants nests on the lawn.
There is no single organic method of attacking pests or increasing your garden’s soil fertility. It is down to working with nature, encouraging wildlife that will keep the pests down and building up an ecosystem, rather than simply attacking it with harsh chemical sprays.
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