We are seven weeks into an eight week Introduction to Permaculture course at Edgeworth David Community Garden in Hornsby. I’ve been taking everyone through the basics of permaculture and this week we had a look at welcome and not so welcome visitors.
Integrated Pest Management is a wholistic strategy for minimising the havoc pests can cause, whilst also maximising the chances of attracting pest predators and pollinators. Growing a diversity of flowers, smelly herbs, and decoy plants through the veggie patch, whilst eliminating the use of chemicals as far as possible. Keeping the life in the soil is key to growing plants that can handle a few gatecrashers.
After a pest invasion has been discovered the first course of action is to observe exactly what is happening, identify the offender, and discover as much as possible about their lifestyle and habits.
- What is their complete life cycle through all their different forms? eg Egg, caterpillar, butterfly.
- How do they get around? Flying, wind?
- Breeding, where are the eggs? Soil or leaves?
- Life span? One year, a couple of days?
- Which stage of the lifecycle does the damage? Larvae or adult?
- What time of year is each stage of the life cycle active in?
- What exactly are they feeding on?
I’ve had enough discussions about dealing with pests to know that the questions are endless! With that in mind I collated a load of information from the web and made these handy sheets for common pests and some beneficial insects so that there was some solid information to go on.
By looking at the information in these sheets you can start to put together a plan on how to deal with an infestation. By far the best preventative measure is to design habitat for as wide a variety of insects, mammals, birds and reptiles as you can so that the abundance keeps everyone in check. One of my most common thoughts upon realising my crops are being swamped by hungry intruders is “what else can I add nearby that will help this situation?”.
When you have a plethora of diversity and you are still getting problems, then it is time for considering interventions and barriers. Depending on the pest, mesh, netting, crushed eggshells etc etc. As a completely last resort, organic pesticides applied as specifically as possible. In my own garden, I don’t use any pesticides at all, but at the community garden, the lack of day to day attention means desperate measures are sometimes needed.
Special mention: In collating this information I got up close and personal with the lifecycle of Fruit Fly. Wow. I’m now fully briefed on how difficult it is to grow anything with this un-welcome guest around. Nets, nets, nets. Not something I love doing, but about the only deterrent that works.
Hope the sheets are of some use.
