Eco-friendly gardening tips

[Strix 11]

In response to Hecate's thread, where she mentions greenfly attacking her plants this year, I thought I'd share this little tip somebody gave me....

 

Greenfly don't like lavender

 

Coincidentally, we wound up with half a dozen lavender plants this year (on offer ), so I gave it a try. Any plant that attracted greenfly, I used the usual method of manually squishing them all, but smeared crushed lavender leaf on the previously infested area..... and it worked!!!

 

Anybody else got any simple eco-friendly tips?

[zweena 10]

Oh yeah, companionship gardeing is what it's called, and i wouild be really interested in what other people have to say.

 

As far as i know, nasturtians and marigolds are good for greenfly/blackfly. anyone know of a good slug repellent plant?

[Tracie 10]

I planted my carrots between rows of garlic and consequently, I had absolutely no problem with carrot fly. Apparently, because the carrot fly finds its way to the seedlings by smell, so having a strong smelling plant (such as garlic or onion) close by confuses it and minimises the risk of damage to the carrot crop

[Strix 11]

As far as i know, nasturtians and marigolds are good for greenfly/blackfly. anyone know of a good slug repellent plant?

I drown mine in beer traps - mostly because if Brude gets his chops round the beer it doesn't do him any harm, but slug pellets....

[Tracie 10]

I drown mine in beer traps - mostly because if Brude gets his chops round the beer it doesn't do him any harm, but slug pellets....

 

Beer traps are great - I buried a few jam jars up to their necks around my lettuce seedlings and popped a couple of inches of beer in each... The amount of slugs that found their way in to them was shocking I really hate the idea of using slug pellets - as well as killing slugs, birds and hedgehogs eat them too I have seen 'organic' slug pellets, but I still think the traps are probably just as effective.

 

Another good trick is to put sharp sand around the edge of pots or in rows along side seedlings - the slugs won't cross the sand. Apparently it also works with porridge oats but they just go mouldy

 

Finally, putting copper wire around the top of plant pots is supposed to stop slugs too - I've never tried it, but the story goes that they won't cross over the wire.

[stackmonkey 10]

Oh yeah, companionship gardeing is what it's called, and i wouild be really interested in what other people have to say.

 

As far as i know, nasturtians and marigolds are good for greenfly/blackfly. anyone know of a good slug repellent plant?

 

lavender and garlic are good companion plants for roses, due to the aphid reasons above.

lots of bark chipping have partly helped to get of my huge snail and slug problem when i moved in 2 years ago.

[JBee 10]

Encourage preditors to visit your garden. Feed the birds and put out the occasional bowel of catfood for hedgehogs. Hopefully they will then start to hoover up the slugs and snails too.