This year I discovered the Popadome pest protection covers and they have been amazing! These domed fruit & vegetable net covers are so easy to use, come in a whole range of sizes and are a simple way to protect your fruit and vegetables from garden pests such as slugs, snails, cabbage white butterflies and birds. The green and black colours mean that they blend in well to the garden even if you have got big 'structures' in place. The Popadome covers have an easy to assemble framework … [Read more...]
Codling Moth Biological Control
Codling moth is one of the major pests of apple trees with the caterpillars burrowing into the fruit. Biological control using a tiny parasitoid wasp is a promising new control method. I was fortunate to be able to participate in the release of the parasitoid wasp in Auckland. Female codling moths lay their eggs on fruit or leaves in summer and the caterpillars (or larvae) head for the fruit immediately upon hatching and burrow inside giving us the all too familiar spotty, buggy apples. … [Read more...]
Controlling Wasps
Wasps are generally regarded as pests when they fly around your picnic or barbeque (especially if they sting you), but in the garden they compete with bees for food and eat caterpillars (ever wondered why your monarch butterfly caterpillars were disappearing?). Once you have caterpillars on your swan plants, cover them over with netting to prevent the wasps getting in. Not all wasps are pests, in fact some play an important role in natural biocontrol. Almost every pest insect species has … [Read more...]
Stopping the Birds from eating all the Plums
I am very fortunate to have two fifty-year old plum trees in my backyard that are wonderful for screening out the neighbours and providing welcome shade for lounging under in the summer. They also produce a great crop of plums that I love to use in all sorts of different preserves (as well as eating them fresh of course). But my biggest problem is getting them before the birds do! I am happy to share some of my crop with the birds but birds don't share nicely: they insist on pecking every … [Read more...]
Controlling Cats in the Garden
I don't dislike cats but I really dislike what they do in the garden! I don't have a cat myself (I developed an allergy to them) but I currently have about 8 different cats all seeking to dominate my garden. They prowl around the fence tops - fighting for territory. They try to mark out their patch by spraying everywhere and some of my plants that are in high transit areas have dead patches (or have died completely) because they have been sprayed so often. One had a nasty habit of … [Read more...]
Controlling Weeds
When I first started developing my garden, it seemed so huge and there were just so many weeds I didn't know where to start. Spraying Roundup where I wanted there to be flower beds helped temporarily, but the weeds just kept coming back and I seemed on an endless cycle of being on my hands and knees hour after hour, weekend after weekend, and by the time I had worked my way around the garden it was time to start all over again. It was soul destroying! I tried all sorts of different shaped … [Read more...]
Cleaning Up Pests in the Garden
Generally my approach to controlling garden pests is to let Mother Nature do her thing. But she can use a helping hand now and again. A good time to do this is in winter and early spring before everything gets established, to reduce pest numbers during the growing season. Generally you wouldn't consider lichen to be a pest. In fact it is often said that lichen on trees is a good indicator that the air is really clean. My plum trees are 50 years old and I've often enjoyed looking at the … [Read more...]
The Lawn Wars Continue
I have discovered that I'm not winning the lawn war after all. A new battle has commenced - this time against moss. I had always had some moss appear around the plum trees in winter and didn't think anything of it because that part of the garden is fully shaded in winter. But now that I've killed off the paspallum, I noticed that I had large patches of moss covering maybe 50% of the lawn. So I got some Sulphate of Iron and sprinkled it over the lawn at about 2 tbsp per m2 as directed to … [Read more...]