T.I.L: Pest Deterrents

I'm not an expert in the garden, so I'm not really sure that offering tips and tricks and advice is the right thing for me, however, I would love to share with you "Things I've Learned" (T.I.L) along the way with my little garden.

This fist T.I.L post, comes curtosy of the little green bugs I mention so often and are again re-appearing in force in my garden - that's right, Aphids.

Through trial and error, I have found that there are 3 methods, used in conjunction with each other and used regularly, that work best for me in keeping my apparent Aphid population at bay.

1. My hands - with a pair of gloves on, and some warm soapy water, the quickest way to rid plants of aphids is to physically remove and squash them! Not the nicest job, and I am careful to not squash the plants in the process, but this method reduces numbers immediately!
2. Pyrethrum Spray - an absolute must for me in regular applications.
3. Home Made Spray - I have a couple of pyrethrum plants in my garden now, so I take the leaves and mix them with water, detergent and oil to make my own spray. The oil and detergent is supposed to clog the pores of the aphids and therefore suffocate them. I sometimes think this spray works better than the pyrethrum, so I use both. Another benefit of using the detergent is that if it gets into the soil (and it's a good idea to spray the soil for aphids too), it is said to help with water retention, particularly if your pots have dried out a little like some of mine! I also plan to try adding a little garlic or chilli to the mix once I start planting tomatoes, as this is supposed to help deter pesky caterpillars :)

- This is the product I am currently using, also available as a concentrate, but there are also many other brands available -

One of the things I have tried and will never do again;

• On advice I was given, I added some sugar to the mix as this was supposed to attract lady bugs (natural predators of aphids). What I ended up with were zero lady bugs, and a crunchy sticky mess with bugs trapped in it!

What I would like to try, and am preparing my garden for;

• Mail order lady bugs.... That's right, you can have a box of these pretty little predators delivered to you for around $40-$50 (AUD). )You can get them here...   http://www.bugsforbugs.com.au/.)  I have been seriously tempted to try this already, but through some research before hand I discovered that without aphids and flowers, the ladybugs are unlikely to stick around! Not such a bad thing, but I thought if I can prepare my garden to best of my ability for some lady bugs, perhaps they'll hang around a little longer, and protect my garden. (A post to come about my lady bug preparations!)

So there you have it... some of what I've learned about pest deterrents (in particular to aphids!). Hope if you're looking for some things to try, this might give you a little hand - my pansies are benefiting from it, such happy faces - 

Happy Potting! K