WAYS TO GARDEN WITHOUT CHEMICALS

A greener garden doesn’t need to be full of pests and diseases. By understanding how your garden grows you can be ready for any problems that might beset your plants, and use solutions that won’t harm the planet.

Stay alert

Pour yourself a cuppa and take it on a daily morning stroll around your veg patch, flower borders, pots, greenhouse and windowsills. It’s a lovely way to start your day and helps you spot any problems the moment they start. TOP TIP Catch pest outbreaks early and they’re easy to deal with. Squish aphids by hand while numbers are still small. Pick off any mottled leaves affected by red spider mites and you’ll remove the mites too. And set the hose to jet to blast blackfly off lupins and runner beans.

Make your own deterrents

Plants often have good defences of their own, producing natural pest deterrents such as capsaicin (chillies) or allicin (garlic). Distil these and they help keep pests off other plants too. TOP TIP Make chilli water by chopping a handful of hot fresh chillies and soaking in a litre of water for a week. Filter through muslin, add a tablespoon of liquid Castile soap, and spray plants, repeating after rain. To tackle mildew on courgettes, spray the leaves with a 50:50 mix of milk and water.

Grow resistant varieties

Some plants are naturally more robust and usually trouble-free, such as lavender, hardy geraniums, artichokes and parsnips. Some are less prone to pests: slugs don’t like red lettuces much, and mangetout peas aren’t affected by pea moths.

TOP TIP Many varieties are bred to shrug off pests and diseases: ‘Flyaway’ carrots aren’t bothered by carrot fly, ‘Florence’ strawberries suffer less from vine weevils, and eelworms rarely attack ‘Cara’ potatoes.

Grow carnivorous plants

If your house plants are plagued by fungus gnats and flies, add some carnivorous plants, such as Venus flytraps and pitcher plants. These fascinating plants trap flies, then dissolve them in ‘digestive’ juices, so are great natural pest controls for windowsills and greenhouses.

TOP TIP They’re surprisingly easy to grow, as long as you give them ericaceous (acidic) compost and water with rainwater, keeping them damp at all times. Move to a cool spot in winter – they’ll die back then re-emerge in spring.

Encourage biodiversoty

It’s a bug-eat-bug world out there – and the pests that attack your plants are at the bottom of the

to beetles, won’t wipe out pests totally,

Encourage predators with food

around the garden, and plant twiggy native shrubs and hedges like hawthorn to shelter birds and hedgehogs.

Chop off their heads

Even thugs like bindweed won’t survive if they can’t photosynthesise. So hoe off or pull out new shoots weekly, without digging (bindweed roots can reach 5m deep and simply regenerate, so there’s no point anyway). Over time, the plants weaken – and may, eventually, die out. TOP TIP Thick cardboard also beats perennial weeds. Lay on bare soil, wet it and tread down, then top with a 10-15cm layer of garden compost. Sow and plant into the compost for a year of weed-free growing. Repeat the following year.

Stop them in their tracks

Once you’ve spotted pests, some damage is already done, so it’s better to physically prevent them reaching plants in the first place. Grow brassicas under insect-proof mesh to keep off butterflies, flea beetles and pigeons; and stand pots of hostas on pot feet above saucers of water, like a moat, to keep slugs out. TOP TIP Anti-slug barriers don’t always work: coffee grounds, eggshells and wood ash wash into the soil when it rains. But bran swells up when wet, making it more, not less, effective.

Boil your kettle

Weeds in paved courtyards, patios and paths can be devilish and time-consuming to winkle out by hand – so brew yourself a cuppa instead. Contact with boiling water is as damaging to the soft parts of plants as it is to any other living things.

TOP TIP Pour just-boiled water along the cracks in your paving to kill the top growth of weeds and some roots too (repeat as often as required for deep-rooted weeds such as dandelions).