"Franz Heymann" wrote in message The
bottom line is that it is not really feasible to control pests
with a population of predators. The food supply is far too irregular
to maintain the defending army.

Franz


I think that, while encouraging beneficial insects into your garden may not
entirely solve your pest problems, it does help, otherwise why wasn't the
world covered in greenfly and other pests before the advent of insecticides.

I also think, as another contributer pointed out futher down the thread,
that the magnitude of the pest problem entirely depends upon your point of
view. If you want your garden to be pristine and completely free of all
pests you will probably have to use some kind of insecticide to kill them
and planting nettles et al will never solve your problems, if however, you
don't mind a few green fly, and would rather not use chemicals, then
cultivating plants that encourage natural predators is beneficial to some
extent.

As an aside, I have used this method, togther with companion planting on my
allotment and have never had to spray with anything in 4 years, which I
think is something of a success :-)

Jeannie