h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Natural pest control - A4343096
Author: Venus. - U218978

I've made a couple of changes. I'd like to submit this please.

Great! Now we just have to wait for some other gardeners to pop along and give you some suggestions

I'll lurk around in case you need any more advice with it

What about ants? Are there any natural ways of keeping them out of where you don't want them?

Feel free to ignore me if you don't wanna talk about ants

Hi Venus,

Links:

There is an Entry on 'Pest Control in the Garden' (i.e. not necessarily 'natural' )at A578540 to which it may be worthwhile linking.

I have an Entry at A3795690 where I mention that an extract from elder can be used to combat carrot fly and cucumber beetles.

Typos, etc:

'In an era where we are encouraged to be more enviromentaly friendly, anyone with a garden has the opportunity to do their part for the environment.
By using less chemicals in the form of herbicides, pesticides and man-made fertilisers'.

>'In an era where we are encouraged to be more enviromentaly friendly, anyone with a garden has the opportunity to do their part for the environment by fewer chemicals such as herbicides, pesticides and man-made fertilisers'.


Under 'Aphid control' you could mention putting a 'ladybird home' into your garden. You can purchase them or preferably make your own from a small log.


3.' ...leaves of plants and brush the shids off. > aphids??

Once the ahpidshave been brushed off, > aphids have




Slug control. Here I would link to Mina's Entry early on, such as by saying s'thing like: 'This has been covered comprehensively at.... However, in addition to the methods described here, you might like to try... (blah, blah)

I looked at the entry on 'Pest control in the garden' As you say its not entirely natural, so i don't really want to link it to mine.
I'd be happy to link your one on carrot fly and cucumber beetle.
I will ammend the typos. 'Shids' is a term used for aphids remains such as dead ones, deposits and sheadings.

Just as a BTW
If you want to keep ants out of your house, use the crushed leaves of Pennyroyal. Wipe them accross where the ants are comming in. They won't cross that boundary.

'Shids' is a term used for aphids remains such as dead ones, deposits and sheadings.

Ah , I wondered whether it was a technical term or a typo. . It might be worth explaining this in a footnote.

It may be easier just to change it to aphids
I won't be able to make the changes untill i'm next on the pc. I'm on a digibox just now.

Personally, I would leave it in and explain it in a footnote. H2G2 is supposed to be educational and this comes under the category of 'Not a lot of people know this, but...'

(Actually, as I think about it, I think I did know it but have forgotten it!)

Right, so you helped with the ants, thanks

Now howsabout keeping wasps and mice out of my kitchen if we're not allowed a cat in a student house? The pest control people are coming tomorrow mind you, so look out for green smoke coming out of my letterbox...

Hello U Sven

Good entry.

There are some odd things happening with paragraphs and new lines - split up with <\BR>s. I'm not sure why you've used it. If you want to bullet-pointed lists - use and Check out GuideML for the details.

The pests are italicised throughout. Again, I'm not sure why. They don't need to be and I wonder whether emboldening them might be more effective?

>>environmentaly<< -- >>environmentally<<

>>do their part for the environment. By using less chemicals...<< -- >>do thieri part for the environment by using fewer chemicals...<<

The sticky by-product of an aphid attack is often known as honeydew. Could be in a footnote?

It's worth mentioning that any natural soap (washing up liq, washing powder, dissolved hard soap etc) can be diluted with water and used to deter aphids - and that it doesn't clog up the pores of the plants, even if it does that to the beasties.

Another aphid control is to collect aphids (tedious, but possible - trust me, I've done it!) add them to water and put them in a blender, then spray the result onto the plants you want to protect. Yucky, but effective.

Another one is to make a garlic and chilli spray. Soak 6 crushed cloves of garlic and 2 chopped chillis in 1 litre of water for a week, blend it all, strain it. Then dilute it with water 10:1 and spray on the plants. Be careful to do it when there aren't too many people around - it stinks!

Don't mention snails under the Slugs heading unless you're going to continue on and talk about them.

Another slug control - which is effective as long as it's undercover (poly tunnel, greenhouse, cloche etc) - is rolled oats sprinkled around the plants. The slugs eat the oats which expand inside them and kill them.

Also, what about the age old technique of creeping out to the veg patch at dusk with a torch and a bucket of beer and picking the slugs off the plants by hand? You get over the slipperiness of it very quickly

Caterpillars should be picked off plants and then placed somewhere which is frequented by blue tits, thrushes, blackbirds and other predators. I kept a family of blue tits very happy in my garden each early summer providing them caterpillars on a regular basis.

Which brings me to the ending. It's awfully abrupt. I wonder if you could round off the entry by having a paragraph about the benefits of maintaining a garden ecosystem that is as natural as possible? The purpose of that is to create a system where ecological balance controls high populations of what we call pests. If you have the birds, the amphibians, small mammals and insects that prey on your pests, half the battle is done without you having to lift a finger. Of course, you might lose all your cabbages before nature does its stuff, so sometimes we have to lend a hand.

Frenchbean

Carrot fly is another one to include - barriers being the best deterrent in that case.

A paragraph about companion planting to deter pests might also be worth considering.

Ref carrot fly: As I said in post 5, I have an Entry at A3795690 where I mention that an extract from elder can be used to combat carrot fly and cucumber beetles.

<SMILEY>

P.S. I like the idea of the garlic and chilli spray. I'm growing some chillis at the oment - only coz I have an ageing pack of seeds that I got free with a gardening magazine. Mrs RBA doesn't like chillis, so this will give me something to use them for.

Oh it's *you* RBA. I'm struggling with these anagrams

Sven... I wonder about other pests that you haven't covered, like codling moth, mice, rabbits, red spider mite, deer, pigeons? I'll happily put some stuff together for you if that's a bit daunting

Fb

Hi Frenchbean.
You're not kidding about it being daunting. I'm none too good at creating guide entries. And i only get on the pc once every couple of weeks. The rest of the time i'm on a digibox.
I'm thinking that this project is getting far too big for me to handle. It was meant to be a brief entry about the most common pests.

BTW My username is 'Venus'

These anagrams....

Okay Venus

Well, if you want I'll draft up a bunch of stuff about the things I outlined in posts 11,12 and 15 ( Crikey... I've had quite a lot to say, haven't I? ) and post it on here. You can then copy and paste it into the entry.

Does that sound okay, or would you prefer to do it yourself? I don't mind either way

Fb

That sounds fine to me. I'm grateful for any help

You know, you should do your own entry as you have so much knowledge on the subject.

Oh I'm quite happy to contribute to yours

I've got some other entries up my sleeve

Thats very kind of you
If there is anything i can do in return just let me know.