All sort of bugs in the soil
 

Hi everyone,


am new to the forum. Please can i get some advice of how to get rid of bugs and insect in the soil.



What happened is last week i removed all my old old, and underneath them i could find all types of insects.



Please can you advise how i can treat the soil, as i cant afford of buying new soil.



Thanks,



ili

All sort of bugs in the soil
 

iltaf wrote:
Hi everyone,


am new to the forum. Please can i get some advice of how to get rid of
bugs and insect in the soil.



Why? Who told you that you need to do this?


What happened is last week i removed all my old old, and underneath
them i could find all types of insects.



Please can you advise how i can treat the soil, as i cant afford of
buying new soil.


The chances are the same bugs would just come back if you did replace the
soil.

The garden is a place that abounds with insects and bugs. You need to deal
with this fact of life and encourage the good ones and cope with the rest.

Trying to kill them ALL on sight is foolish because:

- there is no good reason for it, most are just minding their own business,
- you may harm organisms that are beneficial to the garden or that just
happen to be in the way (including yourself, family, pets) or the
environment at large,
- it is impossible to kill them all anyway.

There is no general solution to the getting rid of bugs. If there is a
PARTICULAR case where 'bugs and insects' are causing harm you need to find
the way to deal with the particularly ones in your situation (which does not
necessarily mean kill them) that causes the least other problems. This
means identifying and understanding your enemy.

As for the rest; adjust your thinking so that they cease to be a problem or
you will have sleepless nights for the rest of your days. If it comes to a
war of total annihilation, Bugs versus Humans, despite our propensity for
genocide I am betting on the bugs, there are more of them and they have been
around for much longer.

Let me give you a case study. In my district cabbage moths abound, these
are white moths that lay eggs on plants of the cabbage family. Technically
they are butterfiles but everybody calls them moths so it makes no
difference. Their larvae hatch out and eat the leaves, if you want to eat
the leaves yourself it is quite annoying to find a bunch of grubs got there
first. For many people the first thing they will say is "spray the
buggers - that'll fix 'em". And it will. For about a week. It will also
'fix' anything else that gets sprayed. After a week the industrious moths
will lay another lot of eggs and we are back to square one. The simplistic
solution is keep spraying every week. This is much trouble and has many
unwanted side effects.

The thoughtful solution requires you to understand the bugs. Here are some
useful facts. 1) The moths are only active in warm weather. 2) A moth is
about 3-4cm across. 3) A female moth has to land on the plant to lay it's
eggs, it doesn't do dive bombing.

Here is the answer: in warm weather cover the plant with 2cm mesh.

Good gardeners try to understand their garden. Bad gardeners don't bother
to think they just kill on sight.


David

All sort of bugs in the soil
 

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

iltaf wrote:
Hi everyone,


am new to the forum. Please can i get some advice of how to get rid of
bugs and insect in the soil.



Why? Who told you that you need to do this?


What happened is last week i removed all my old old, and underneath
them i could find all types of insects.



Please can you advise how i can treat the soil, as i cant afford of
buying new soil.


The chances are the same bugs would just come back if you did replace the
soil.

The garden is a place that abounds with insects and bugs. You need to deal
with this fact of life and encourage the good ones and cope with the rest.

Trying to kill them ALL on sight is foolish because:

- there is no good reason for it, most are just minding their own business,
- you may harm organisms that are beneficial to the garden or that just
happen to be in the way (including yourself, family, pets) or the
environment at large,
- it is impossible to kill them all anyway.

There is no general solution to the getting rid of bugs. If there is a
PARTICULAR case where 'bugs and insects' are causing harm you need to find
the way to deal with the particularly ones in your situation (which does not
necessarily mean kill them) that causes the least other problems. This
means identifying and understanding your enemy.

As for the rest; adjust your thinking so that they cease to be a problem or
you will have sleepless nights for the rest of your days. If it comes to a
war of total annihilation, Bugs versus Humans, despite our propensity for
genocide I am betting on the bugs, there are more of them and they have been
around for much longer.

Let me give you a case study. In my district cabbage moths abound, these
are white moths that lay eggs on plants of the cabbage family. Technically
they are butterfiles but everybody calls them moths so it makes no
difference. Their larvae hatch out and eat the leaves, if you want to eat
the leaves yourself it is quite annoying to find a bunch of grubs got there
first. For many people the first thing they will say is "spray the
buggers - that'll fix 'em". And it will. For about a week. It will also
'fix' anything else that gets sprayed. After a week the industrious moths
will lay another lot of eggs and we are back to square one. The simplistic
solution is keep spraying every week. This is much trouble and has many
unwanted side effects.

The thoughtful solution requires you to understand the bugs. Here are some
useful facts. 1) The moths are only active in warm weather. 2) A moth is
about 3-4cm across. 3) A female moth has to land on the plant to lay it's
eggs, it doesn't do dive bombing.

Here is the answer: in warm weather cover the plant with 2cm mesh.

Good gardeners try to understand their garden. Bad gardeners don't bother
to think they just kill on sight.


David

If you have a lot of pests, something that preys on them will be along
soon. Identify your pests, and you can assist their predators.

--
Remember Rachel Corrie
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg

All sort of bugs in the soil
 

Billy wrote:
....
If you have a lot of pests, something that preys on them will be along
soon. Identify your pests, and you can assist their predators.

that is a good response, please send
predators for idiot motorcycle riders.


songbird

All sort of bugs in the soil
 

songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:
...
If you have a lot of pests, something that preys on them will be
along soon. Identify your pests, and you can assist their predators.

that is a good response, please send
predators for idiot motorcycle riders.


songbird

Mack trucks are hard to email......


D

All sort of bugs in the soil
 

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:
...
If you have a lot of pests, something that preys on them will be
along soon. Identify your pests, and you can assist their predators.

that is a good response, please send
predators for idiot motorcycle riders.


songbird

Mack trucks are hard to email......


D

There are old motorcycle riders, and there are bold motorcycle riders,
but there are no old, bold motorcycle riders. The local lunkheads
apparently belong to a religion that renounced bafflers. I encourage
them to speed.

It was 82F today, but you never know when a frost could hit. I think I
should put down some fine gravel in the roadway, just in case.

--
Remember Rachel Corrie
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg

All sort of bugs in the soil
 

David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:
...
If you have a lot of pests, something that preys on them will be
along soon. Identify your pests, and you can assist their predators.

that is a good response, please send
predators for idiot motorcycle riders.

Mack trucks are hard to email......

the problem with attracting mack truck's is that
you need beer, which is also the attractant to
idiot motorcycle riders. before the recent
motorcycle craze we just had the usual drunks not
remembering this is a T-bone corner. now with
the motorcycles, not only do we have the usual
drunks, we also have the riders who think that if
they pass with on-coming traffic they somehow have
a magical shield of protection around them. there
are no shoulders on this road. there's nowhere
to dodge if one of them jinks out in front of you
when you're on the way home. so we almost ate one
Saturday with the front of the car. no injuries,
no crashes, just an annoyed me and i hope a little
more cautious motorcycled rider.

ok, off-topic, but to return to the real topic
of pests. i saw two aphids the other day on a tulip.
i haven't seen aphids in a long time. i brushed
them off with my finger. the tulip gardens have no
green belt in them to harbor lady beetles and we
turned a few gardens near them into veggie gardens.
i'll have to plant a few alfalfa patches along the
north edge to give the lady beetles a refuge for the
off-season/winter. will cut into the climbing bean
space, but i'll bet it won't make that much of a
difference in the end. the climbing beans look to
be quite willing to try to smother an alfalfa plant.

the weather looks good for today's gardening. if i
can get the bags of wood shreddings dug in i'll be
ready to plant more onions and peas tomorrow.

the woodchuck is back. i think a hawk got at least
one of the bunnies. the woodchuck might be too big
for a hawk to tackle. haven't seen any chipmunks yet.
plenty of snakes around. yay! get them mice and
chippies.

ok, gotta get my butt outta bed and water the bird-
baths and check on the sprouts and give that seedbed
a mist. the beets should start showing up this week
if they're going to sprout at all.


songbird