Down on the Allotment

Matron grows vegetables and fruit in a Hampshire garden. I've been growing veggies since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Some traditional varieties and old favourites as well as new ideas. I share my garden with my allotment assistant Daisy the Labrador. On Twitter as @MatronsVeggies

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Gooseberry saw fly

I am on the look-out once more for pesky pests in the garden. I notice that the slugs are once more raising their ugly heads. The ones that do the most damage are the little brown stripey slugs rather than the big black ones. A couple of years ago I bought a packet of 'nemaslug' - these are a natural control measure, nematode worms. You mix the packet of beige powder into a bucket of water and distribute all over your soil. Nematode worms are microscopic orgasms.. which live on the surface slime of slugs and kill them. Hooray!

Another pest which is sure to haunt me this year is gooseberry saw fly. Apparently they overwinter in the soil and then in the spring hatch their little larvae - caterpillars - who munch their way through your entire plant in the blink of an eye. Apparently I am supposed to keep an eye out for little holes in the leaves, then spend all my spare time searching for them by hand and squishing them! I am not against squishing per se.... but there must be more interesting ways to spend my spare time. Ho hum.... let the games begin!

1 Comments:

At 9:10 PM, Anonymous Mand said...

I'm going to Derris Dust mine. I have holes and I saw a mature fly. Little horrors!

 

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