There are many insects and bugs in the garden, some useful some not. As we garden organically we do not use chemicals to eradicate all those we do not want.
Slugs and snails are a problem for every gardener we try to keep the numbers down with the use of a garlic wash, especially on hostas, also going out and manually picking them off and moving them away from the garden. On newly planted seedlings we use the organically approved ferric phosphate slug pellets, sparingly. Once the plants are established we tolerate a few holes nibbled from the leaves.
Aphids are bad this year especially on the new shoots of the apple trees, squashing them between finger and thumb reduces some and a soap spray helps too.
Once the beneficial insects arrive it is best not to use the soap as we do not want to kill everything.
A welcome sight is this “ugly” bug:
The few early lady birds have been busy and the sight of these larvae mean we will very soon get many more lady birds to keep eating all the aphids.
This very pretty beetle can be devastating on the asparagus crop. They nibble the head of the asparagus. Later they lay little black eggs on the fern foliage and these hatch into tiny grey slugs which can defoliate the fern.
This is a problem because once you stop harvesting the spears, the crop is left to leaf up and nourish the roots ready for next year.
We try and reduce the effects of this bug by squashing the adults, the are very hard to catch as when they sense a shadow they drop to the soil upside down and play dead so are hard to see! We also have to squash the slugs that hatch to try and reduce the damage and prevent the crop from being completely weakened.
Asparagus beetle
