Fighting Backyard Insects
If you cherish your flowers and vegetables you will have to do something to deal with them.
How earnestly you take this quest is obviously up to you, but a backyard will soon be overrun if you do nothing at all.
There are basically two ways of dealing with backyard insects: there are items that you can use, so-called mechanical ways and spray killers such as insecticide and fungicide.
These two ways offer an infinite variation of combinations to deal with backyard insects.
A useful instance of a mechanical method of protection is the covered frame.
A covered frame is a five sided box with no bottom.
You stand it over your plants especially when they are young.
The top of the box can be perspex, glass or fly screen.
The plastic, perspex or glass top is good for protecting the plant from frost too as bugs, whereas the fly screen will let the elements in but protect the plant from bugs and birds.
They might be thought of as winter and summer protection respectively.
A cheaper way of protecting young plants from say cut-worm, is to cut the top and bottom off a drinks container and then cut the body into three rings.
Put a ring around a plant and push it at least an inch into the ground, leaving an inch or two showing.
Leave the cut edges nice and rough to repel slugs, snails and cut-worms from scrambling over it.
If that is a lot of trouble, you could use plastic bottle rings or cardboard treated with oil - perhaps WD40 - which will ward off pests as well as the above and stop it becoming soggy by rain.
If you would like to spray your fruit, you will require a spray-gun.
You can either get one with a compressor or you can pump it up yourself.
The latter are much cheaper, do a good job and provide more exercise.
The chemicals used in these sprays is quite corrosive, so get a spray tank that will resist this.
Aluminium, stainless steel or brass are the best, but you should take advice depending on the chemicals used.
Cheaper models will rust away quite quickly.
Make sure you can purchase extension rods for spraying into trees if necessary.
Slugs and snails are not keen on travelling over rough surfaces, so you should save all your egg shells, crush them into a coarse grit and lay them in a ring surrounding your plants.
The weather will break them down, but they contain nutrients that are good for the soil anyway.
If you have an ants nest exactly where you do not want one, wait until the spring or early summer and lay a piece of slate or tile on top of the entrance to the nest.
Put an upturned flowerpot on top of this and cover the hole in the bottom of it.
After a couple of dry days, the ants will have brought a few hundred eggs up onto the slate.
You can consume these - Thais say they are an aphrodisiac - or you may feed them to your fish.
After a couple of weeks of this the ants will be discouraged and will move their nest elsewhere.
How earnestly you take this quest is obviously up to you, but a backyard will soon be overrun if you do nothing at all.
There are basically two ways of dealing with backyard insects: there are items that you can use, so-called mechanical ways and spray killers such as insecticide and fungicide.
These two ways offer an infinite variation of combinations to deal with backyard insects.
A useful instance of a mechanical method of protection is the covered frame.
A covered frame is a five sided box with no bottom.
You stand it over your plants especially when they are young.
The top of the box can be perspex, glass or fly screen.
The plastic, perspex or glass top is good for protecting the plant from frost too as bugs, whereas the fly screen will let the elements in but protect the plant from bugs and birds.
They might be thought of as winter and summer protection respectively.
A cheaper way of protecting young plants from say cut-worm, is to cut the top and bottom off a drinks container and then cut the body into three rings.
Put a ring around a plant and push it at least an inch into the ground, leaving an inch or two showing.
Leave the cut edges nice and rough to repel slugs, snails and cut-worms from scrambling over it.
If that is a lot of trouble, you could use plastic bottle rings or cardboard treated with oil - perhaps WD40 - which will ward off pests as well as the above and stop it becoming soggy by rain.
If you would like to spray your fruit, you will require a spray-gun.
You can either get one with a compressor or you can pump it up yourself.
The latter are much cheaper, do a good job and provide more exercise.
The chemicals used in these sprays is quite corrosive, so get a spray tank that will resist this.
Aluminium, stainless steel or brass are the best, but you should take advice depending on the chemicals used.
Cheaper models will rust away quite quickly.
Make sure you can purchase extension rods for spraying into trees if necessary.
Slugs and snails are not keen on travelling over rough surfaces, so you should save all your egg shells, crush them into a coarse grit and lay them in a ring surrounding your plants.
The weather will break them down, but they contain nutrients that are good for the soil anyway.
If you have an ants nest exactly where you do not want one, wait until the spring or early summer and lay a piece of slate or tile on top of the entrance to the nest.
Put an upturned flowerpot on top of this and cover the hole in the bottom of it.
After a couple of dry days, the ants will have brought a few hundred eggs up onto the slate.
You can consume these - Thais say they are an aphrodisiac - or you may feed them to your fish.
After a couple of weeks of this the ants will be discouraged and will move their nest elsewhere.
