This is the 18th entry from my draft manuscript, working title: Spring in the Cottage Garden. You can read the first instalment by tapping below:
One area where i have made a great shift in my attitude is around insects and spiders – or pests, as they are often described. Like many other gardeners I was devastated to one day find my lettuce smothered with aphids, and to watch as my vegetable garden became a white butterfly paradise. Obviously, I got rid of the plants as soon as I found them and figured i’d try growing them again some other time. Soapy spray seemed to be the generally accepted organic method, although some of the lettuces were so far gone that I just pulled them out and chucked them away.
It was later that I came across the ‘wait it out’ method. The theory is based on the fact that in the great diversity of ecosystems, all pests have predators; everything is eaten by something else. Aphids, for example, are favoured by ladybugs caterpillars by wasps and birds. So if the …
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