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#1
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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 |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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 |
#4
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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 |
#5
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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 |
#6
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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 |
#7
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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 |
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