tried companion planting for the first time this year and guess what it really works...... nasturshums with everything, particularly round my broadbeans, runnerbeans and french beans. Have to say marigolds are great for slugs.
And does it not make the vegetable garden look pretty too, gardengirl! Have you tried Limanthes douglasii "the poached egg plant) as a green manure. Dig almost all of it in, in the spring, and what is left will flower very early and you will find very few weeds can compete with it. Phacelia is very pretty too as a green manure and it is so much cheaper and more efficient than chemical fertilizers.
Well, it looks as if, on average, there may well be fewer about than in most years....but apologies to those of you who do have amassive infestation of aphids!!! The control that is the buzz word at the moment it seems is full fat milk, the creamier the better sprayed on to aphids....
Why waste full fat milk on you have to do is buy a packet of cosmos seeds for nectar for the adults and the larvae of hoverflies will devour the aphids for you. Anyone with elder or rowan in their garden or limanthes douglasii, sedum spectabile, solidago, buttercups and a myriad of other flowers will have lots of hoverflies at present. I have been trying to photograph mine for the magazine but the click of my camera seems to be a real putoff.
I have a philadelphus with tips covered in blackfly. These are being eaten rapidly by black bugs with two orange zig-zag lines along their backs. Can anyone identify these bugs? I am anxious lest they turn out to be more of a pest than the blackfly.
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The control that is the buzz word at the moment it seems is full fat milk, the creamier the better sprayed on to aphids....