Further to questions i have received from members in the group regarding  how to control pests and diseases in the garden i thought i would share some small tips. Some i have used in the past and have worked a treat and others take a little time to  work.

Vegetable Gardening.

If you have your vegetables in pots or beds and you are plagued by Blackfly / Greenfly or whitefly, then i would advise you plant clumps or lines of either French or African Marigolds between them. These summer bedding plants give off a pungent scent that pests dont like and often tend to keep away or at least there numbers can be reduced.

If your growing carrots or cauliflowers, then i would advise creating mini tents using a wire coat hangers and horticultural fleece over the wire frames. The main pest with carrots is Carrot root fly. The adult will usually lay its eggs just below the surface of the soil and once the young hatch they then feed on the carrot, over time these carrots can become deformed and often will just stop growing altogether. Ideally once the carrots have been planted you need to consider adding a tent like structure to cover the plants. Alternatively you could plant bulbs of garlic near your carrots and this will deter the pests aswell.

Blackfly / Greenfly/ Whitefly and Red Spider Mite.

All of these pests are common garden pests and will affect not just home grown produce but flowering plants too including roses, bedding plants and even shrub stock in the garden. There are various methods for reducing numbers and outbreaks organically, some methods require further treatments throughout the growing season.

With the use of a hand sprayer you could make a mix up of 50/50 washing up liquid and water, when you spray this on the plants particuarley roses, the soap leaves a sticky residue film on the top and underside of the foliage, spray at the first outbreak of pests, the soap will prevent the pest flying and eventually bind its wings and then the eventual happens

If you grow Rhubarb in your garden what do you do with the leaves once you have harvested the stalks? Take a hessian sack and fill the sack with all the rhubarb leaves (it helps if you can rip them up as it will speed the process up quicker). Once the sack is filled, tie the top and dunk the whole sack in a bin of water (rainwater preferred) and leave for 3 months.  During this time your are creating the equivalent of a garden tea bag. Once 3 months are up take the sack out of the water, squeeze all the remaining water / rhubarb juice out of the sack as you would with a tea bag. Empty the decayed foliage onto the compost bin and then you need to filter the residue water in the bin. I will warn you now this is quite a stinking job, but it will pay massive dividends later.

Store the filtered rhubarb water /juice in a separate bottles or buckets and then once a week add it to a hand sprayer and spray everything in the garden with it (All plants). This makes a good foliage feed, and organic insecticide and fungicide.  This method can also be used with Borage and Comfrey leaves too.

Finally, Stinging nettles, Every garden has them , but really we call them weeds. A weed is an unwanted plant growing in the wrong place. Many weeds are bad for the garden. But the Stinging nettle is a useful plant to have. I am not advising to plant the garden completely with them, but keeping a clump of them in a pot somewhere in the garden is good for nature.

The humble nettle Utica dioca is a super food for the garden, full of iron , calcium and magnesium and is fantastic for adding to a compost heap, leaves only . It makes a great host plant, meaning many Aphids will congregate round a clump of nettles and then the nettles become almost a sacrificial ground full of aphids, fantastic for garden birds as they will then have a hub of aphids to feed from and your prize blooms are saved.

A good pot of nettles in the garden also becomes a Ladybird Paradise, the adults will lay their eggs on the nettles and the larve will then hatch and start eating the aphids and you wont regret it once the ladybird army start going to work.

A Garden pond, or a small wooden barrel sunk in the ground with a few large stones allowing small amphibious creatures to get in and out will encourage frogs and toads, great to deter a  raging slug population.

Failing that, install a Slug Pub in your borders, an old gardeners favourite but great to involve the children with . insert a small plastic beaker into the soil and fill a small amount of cheap beer into the bottom, the sweet nectar entices a few slimy figures to congregate and then are lured to their death.

Biological control for Greenhouses: to help clear greenhouse pests, there are many products on the market that you can buy online. The one i have had great success with is  a Parasitic Wasp (Encarsia formosa), you recieve the wasps in a small vial in the post and you basically just tip a few on to the compost of the plants in the greenhouse. With the warmth and moisture  they will soon hatch and can start to grow. These really only have the lifespan of a summer, and they will not over winter. Once the adult have grown they will reproduce and the larve will then start feeding on any pests in the greenhouse. If like me you grow Tomatoes and cucumbers , i am often plagued with Whitefly and red spider mite, these little critters will then digest the pests in a matter of weeks. They work a treat, and have had numerous successes with them.

Next topic: Compost heaps.

Now that we are getting to the time of year when we are past early morning frosts, you can start to think about your hanging baskets.

Choose a hanging basket that has good depth and diameter. Ideally choose a wire framed basket as these will provide your with a good longevity of service. When choosing how to line your basket there are a number of options to consider. These can be moss, coir, wool and plastic sheeting.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to each. Moss is costly and only really lasts one season, Coir is attractive but dries out very quickly, hanging basket wool is another oprion which is made up of recycled materials and then there is an inside out compost bag.

I prefer to use moss as it looks more natural and holds water better. The secret to a good hanging basket is to keep it sufficiently moist / damp whilst it is actively growing.

1. Line your basket with your preferred medium, in this case i am using moss.

2. start by filling up the base and lower insides edges with moss and packing it tightly to the edges, then fill in the central hollow with a cut out a disc shape from a compost bag and make lots of small holes inside it. Then place this disc at the bottom of the basket on top of the first layer of moss. This will act as reservoir with drainage, then add compost on top of this

3. Choose which trailing plants you wish to use and start inserting them round the edge of the basket so that they poke through the wires but the root sits on the compost and moss edges. Once you have done this start by packing more moss round the inner edges of the basket so that the trailing plant roots are within the basket, packing the moss to the sides.

4. Fill up the basket with more compost until you reach the top. make sure you pack the compost down to expel any air.

5 Begin planting the top of the basket starting with your (Dot Plant) this is the plant which will be in the middle of the basket. For Summer bedding i usually have a geranium (Pelagonium) , once this is in your start planting round the outside. Never be afraid to pack too many plants into a basket.

6. Once its all planted i suggest sprinkling a handful of slow release fertiliser granules and Swell Gell on top of the basket and round the plants. The slow release will feed the basket for the next few months and the swell gel is a granule which when , in contact with water, turns to jelly, this will help keep the compost moist during dry and windy spells.

7. Once the bedding starts to produce flower buds you then want to start applying a liquid plant food, usually once a week and then as flowering begins , twice a week. Hanging baskets must never be allowed to dry out.

Plants Suitable for Summer hanging  baskets are as follows:

Geraniums upright and trailing / Fushsias including Trailing forms, Petunias including trailing forms, Nepeta, Lysimachia, Helichrysum, Lobelia, Impatiens, ivy, begonias, cinerariaand many others.