Terry van der Walt

basic science thrown in.

By ensuring your soil is healthy, you are producing crops that are hearty, which means far less damage by pests and disease.

If you choose crops that have a natural resistance to specific pests, you are already on a winning wicket.

And if you choose local varieties of crops, they are more likely to resist local pests and diseases than introduced varieties, she says.

Companion planting is your next weapon. Simply by planting onions and spring onions alongside carrots, you mask the smell of the carrot that can attract carrot flies that do damage.

Run your hands over the onion plants before weeding or harvesting in the carrot patch, and this keeps the flies unaware of your juicy crop.

Crop rotation, where you change the crop you plant in each section, also pushes down populations of bugs and diseases that otherwise flourish.

One really good bit of advice from the organic crew is to have a natural area in your garden.

Here you could have a small water feature, with logs and rocks placed around it.

Apart from its visual appeal, it also attracts predators like birds and lizards that prey on the insects that descend on your garden of Eden.

African Conservation Trust showed us its efforts on a recent visit to its Richmond homestead gardens project.

They buried two tyres, one on top of the other, lined them with strong black plastic and filled them with water. Then they put stones and small logs around the waterhole.But still the best form of defence is being vigilant. When you notice an infestation, act immediately by pulling large