The Zimbabwean Gardener Issue 16 Autumn 2016 Low res | Page 6

Organic gardens

Organic pest control
by Lindsay Charters

Find out what insects and plants are beneficial to your garden to help you keep the pests and
fungal diseases under control.

Are these the ‘goodies’ or the ‘baddies’ in an organic garden?

Many gardeners have good intentions
of growing their plants without using
dangerous chemicals, but when
their favourite rose bush or ripening
tomatoes are attacked by a plague of
pestilence, they buy an armoury of
pesticides and attack the offending
insects or fungi with anything they
can. It is, however, completely
possible to control any pest using
organic methods.

kill something, watch it for a while
and establish what it’s feeding on:
your plants or another insect?

Changing the way we think
of pests

• Is your plant malnourished? Feed
with organic fertiliser and compost.
Use worm tea for an extra boost.
• Does your plant need pruning?

Don’t jump at every insect you see
with your spray bottle and swatting
slop. Many insects actually help to
control pests like predatory beetles,
praying mantis, parasitic wasps and
ladybugs, to name a few. Before you

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Mealie bugs
These fluffy little insects do suck the
sap from plant stems but they’re not
pests in the traditional sense. They
only occur on unhealthy plants and
are great big signposts that tell you
to leap into action. Check for the
following:

Crickets
Crickets in your lawn are also a cry
for help. Crickets can coexist with
your plants happily when they live

in flowerbeds. They will only venture
into the lawn and cause damage and
unsightly tunnels if the soil is hard;
hard soil under your lawn is caused
by a lack of organic matter and an
absence of earthworms and beneficial
soil fungi. The two main causes of this
are:
1. Using chemical fertilisers, pesticides
and herbicides.
2. Applying tobacco scrap to the lawn.
Grasshoppers
While we might not enjoy
grasshoppers chomping our veggies
or roses, they are not pests in all areas
of the garden. The growth of some
shrubs, particularly indigenous ones
like the Buddleia species, is actually
stimulated by grasshopper grazing.