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Most gardeners have experienced the
disappointment of carefully raising a vegetable crop,
only to have it damaged or destroyed by
an invasion of pests
such as slugs, aphids or other bugs.
The traditional advice in such situations is to heavily spray crops with pesticides,
but many of us prefer to use nature's
own organic controls for the foods we're going to eat.
Using nature's own checks and balances
to keep pests down is an age-old technique,
and you can give nature a helping hand by following some of these key principles:
Plant a range of crops in your growing space,
including some flowers that will add an
attractive visual element to your garden
but more importantly will add color and
scent, which will naturally attract beneficial insects
and provides a source
of food for them in the form of pollen and nectar.
These beneficial insects will eat other flying
pests, such as lacewings eating aphids.
Provide shelter and habitat to encourage predators, where they can shelter and reproduce.
You could leave a section of your garden to remain wild,
leaving rocks and other natural items, and not cutting anything which grows there for a season.
You could make or buy a bug hotel
which provides lots of nooks and crannies for the insects
which can be hung easily in a tree or next to a shed.
Or, you can provide shrubs and hedges.
Plant sacrificial, or trap, crops, which are plants you add to your garden to
attract pests away from the main crops you're growing.
Even pests have preferences for the sorts of
plants they prefer to eat,
so by choosing the right ones the pests
will be attracted to the sacrificial plant,
and do less damage to your crops.
Some of the best
trap crops include nasturtiums,
which are very attractive to aphids such as
blackly, greenfly and whitefly
which will often completely cover the
stems.
Nettles also attract aphids, especially early on
in the season.
Chervil is very attractive to slugs
especially at the seedling stage,
and French marigold attracts slugs,
thrips and nematodes.
It's usually sufficient to plant sacrificial plants at the edge of your crop growing spaces,
which is the first place pests will
attack from.
Companion planting is the planting of flowers or herbs to attract beneficial insects
such as lacewings and ladybugs (or ladybirds)
which then feed on the pests.
The best plants to choose are those with flowers that provide lots of protein-rich pollen,
and that provide a source of nectar
throughout the year.
Many highly-bred ornamental flowers fall short on these, so always check the packet.
Many are now
labeled as insect-friendly.
Some of the best flowers to choose
include
calendula, marigold, chamomile, poached egg plant, phacelia, and comfrey.
If you don't want
to rely on nature exclusively,
barriers can be used to prevent pests
reaching your crop,
and are particularly effective for keeping out birds, small mammals such as squirrels,
and pets
which like to dig in freshly prepared soil.
Use cloches to protect easily-damaged
crops like lettuce from slugs, snails and aphids
and to stop birds pulling out the crops,
especially when they are small.
Cover crops with netting throughout the
growing season to keep most of the larger pests out.
By using a system of netting and canes with plant pots on top
you can easily and quickly get access to crops and raise the height of the netting as your crops grow.
This is also effective protection from
butterflies which are particularly drawn to brassicas,
where they lay their eggs which later turn into cabbageworm (or caterpillars)
which can devastate a crop.
If you choose the size of the netting carefully,
beneficial pollinating and predator
insects will still be able to get through
and give you a helping hand.
This is
particularly useful to protect soft fruit from birds,
but it's also a good idea to use
something to scare the birds away too,
such as a row of old CDs to prevent them
from getting tangled in the netting.
There are many ways to trap and kill
slugs,
and a host of different products on the
market that promise to do just that.
An easy way to trap and kill them is to sink a dish or a used fruit skin like a grapefruit
filled with beer into the
soil.
The slugs flock to it, get drunk on the
beer and drown,
and you can empty this every few days and
refresh as a continuous trap.
Use jets of water from your hose or
squash by hand any aphid populations that
seem to be
getting out of control.
It's messy, but a great way to get closer to your plants!
Keeping on top of pests throughout the
growing season
might seem like a never-ending battle
but remember - 
nature has checks and balances in place, and you can help out by following the key steps:
Provide the ideal conditions in your garden to attract and retain pollinating insects;
use trap, or sacrificial plants;
add flowers
as companion plants to confuse pests;
and use barriers and traps.
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