Eco Friendly House And Garden

I don’t mean badgers and sparrows - I mean plant diseases and pests!

We know that the quickest way to kill off diseases and pests in our gardens is to use chemicals - but that isn’t very eco friendly or organic.

There are alternative treatments, but they normally involve a lot of your time or money or result in dead or dying plants.

So, why not plan to never have the pests or diseases in the first place?

Planning Ahead.
Why not follow these simple guidelines to reducing the chances of anything untoward getting into your garden from the start!

The most likely way to infect your garden is to bring in plants from elsewhere. If you buy plants from garden fetes or charity shops etc, or find them in skips, you have got to expect the worst.

If they were loved and cared for in pristine conditions - people wouldn’t be selling them cheap or throwing them away, would they? So:

1) Use only local and reputable suppliers and nurseries
2) Only use the neighbours you know who care for their plants properly
3) Make sure the supplier or neighbour has been organic too!
4) Avoid semi-mature specimens from overseas - you just never know!

Plants on arrival:
Any plants, seeds or bulbs arriving in your yard should be carefully inspected to make sure they are healthy, especially if they are from a friend/fete/garden show/etc.

If you buy plants that are not looking healthy, you can’t expect them to be healthy - so only take on with care. If you are receiving a delivery of plants - check them too: don’t just look at a few - check them all - you are paying for them. There is no point paying for a plant that is diseased or infested.

Buying dodgy looking plants may be a cheaper way to get them - but won’t be so cheap if they need chemicals to recover, take an extra year to establish or flower, or worse: cause damage your existing plants!

Quarantine the new plants in a specific area away from any other plants or gardens for at least 2 but preferably 6 weeks. Many bugs and diseases can travel short distances so could easily infect neighboring plants if planted too soon.

And finally, make sure you don’t cross-contaminate the tools and equipment used for new plants. Disease can be carried on your tools and hands - so be fussy and make sure you clean everything.

I recently moved my plants to a new home and picked up a strange mite - which has all but killed a tropical plant of mine that took 6 months to germinate last year!

So Finally:
Find out what the common pests and diseases look like and what plants and conditions they prefer so you can spot the first signs of trouble - hopefully before you buy them!

Also, knowing the visual identification of garden pests and preferred conditions of certain diseases means that you can act fast at the first sign of trouble and save your plants - and all your hard work!

Everyone is thinking about home-grown food now - so here are a few less thought of tips to help you on your way!

We all know to get a water butt and to not use a powerful sprinkler during the heat of the day, so I thought of some less obvious one that can really make a difference.

1) Why Grow Potatoes?
You can grow just about anything these days after a bit of reading up, so why just grow anything?

There are certain vegetables that are very easy to buy at stores and very reasonably priced local foods - so why grow them yourself? Why not focus your time and energy on the foods that you can’t easily get hold of or that are very expensive to buy.

For example a lot of berries and currents are extraordinarily expensive to buy, but you can easily grow your own in a corner of your yard and pick them when you need them. And if you have a small greenhouse or poly-tunnel you could easily be growing things that are not normally found in your local area but are suitable for this environment.

2) Will They Grow Themselves?
There are many crops that need a lot of care and attention to grow from seed or when potting on. There are also many plants that are energy or water intensive.

Think about these restraints on your time and the environmental costs before taking on a demanding crop - don’t just think about the end result.

It is probably a lot less energy-intensive for a large farm to grow such crops and ship them to your store than for every household to try to grow their own. Increasing the scale of production always lowers costs and resources.

Also, out of season crops need more attention as do out-of-environment crops. Out-of-environment crops are those that can’t be grown without plenty or extras - like protection, fertilisers (natural or not) and other considerations.

Basically they are fruits and vegetables that are perfectly suited to a particular environment - which isn’t where you live! So, if you want to try something different that needs more resources, then make sure you put every effort in to nurturing it; hitting a bumper crop and then eating every last piece of edible material it produces!

Seriously, if you are going to be putting 3 months or more of intensive effort into growing vegetable A, then you had better make sure you follow that care through to the end. What a waste it would be if you started off ok and then went on holiday or got ‘too busy’ and let them die. What an even worse waste of resources that would be!

3) Are They Attractive To Bugs?
Make sure you find out which fruits and veg are less attractive to pests and disease before you start planting.  And when they are less atrractive to pests - pests all have their own ‘cycle’ so avoiding this can sometimes be advantageous and plant-saving!

There is nothing worse than getting a problem with your crops and then finding the only solution is to apply chemical cures or simply to start over! What a waste!

Sometimes it’s just a matter of choosing the right planting dates or using the right natural protection. For example, the first round of runner beans I planted when I first started growing veg got totally destroyed by hungry slugs (regardless of my organic slug repellent) whereas some I planted much later in the season never even got one bite to them - the whole crop survived!

Make sure you do your research in advance so that you know all the info before you lose your first crop!

Join me in a few days for Part 2 , bringing you some more unusual but extremely helpful tips…..