Organic pest control outline for Living Smarties Melville.

­­Organic pest control talk.

How to reduce pest problems without using chemical sprays?

IMPROVING CULTURAL PRACTICES IN THE GARDEN

Stop using chemical pesticides and herbicides

Choose appropriate plants

Plant early and/or late varieties

Grow lots of flowers

Crop rotation

Improving the soil

Garden hygiene

Avoid monoculture

INCREASING BIODIVERSITY

Biodiversity increases predators and plant diversity allows some plants to survive when others get diseased or eaten. 

The four main ideas to consider to increase biodiversity in your garden are :

PLANT LOCAL SPECIES

PROVIDE FOOD

PROVIDE WATER

PROVIDE SHELTER

OBSERVATION

Why not to use chemicals in the garden and how to encourage biodiversity and use cultural practices instead to reduce pests naturally.

Beneficial insects and what they do and how to deal with pests in a non or low toxic manner.

WHAT'S A PEST? (My definition): An insect or other animal becomes a pest when it causes economical damage. This may be due to there not being enough diversity in the surrounding ecosystem to support the predators, which keep the pests in check.

WHY NOT TO USE PESTICIDES

Encouraging diversity in your garden is the best way to control pests.

How to reduce pest problems?

IMPROVING CULTURAL PRACTICES IN THE GARDEN

Generally the worst problems will occur in new or neglected gardens or those with a history of chemical abuse.  It can take 3 years for balance to occur as it takes  awhile for predator populations to increase.

Stop using any chemical pesticides and herbicides. They kill far more than the target species; even the 'safer' ones can be dodgy.

Chemicals can kill non-target species of beneficial insects as they are extremely sensitive to any chemical use at all.

Resistance: Insects can become resistant to certain pesticides, making the surviving ones harder to kill may be hereditary resistance to common toxic sprays.

exposed eggs of an insect can show signs of resistance as an adult.

Soil organisms are sometimes affected by biocides.

Choose appropriate plants for your climate, time of year and soil type.  Certain varieties will be more locally adapted than others, if they've been grown there before.  Look around at other gardens to see what does well and isn't being bothered by pests. 

There may be disease resistant strains of the plant you like.

Plant early and/or late varieties: works to avoid pests such as Med fruit fly. You might just miss the time when the pests want to bother that crop.

Grow lots of flowers: Asteraceae family (daisies) and the Apiaceae family (dill, fennel, carrots, Queen Anne's lace, yarrow, angelica, coriander, parsley). Salvias and gone to seed veg and herbs are great too

Crop rotation stops a host plant being in the same place when eggs hatch the next year from adults that fed on the last seasons crop.  There can be problems associated with nematodes or other soil diseases when crop rotation doesn't occur.

Improving the soil and feeding plants well will grow healthier, stronger and more pest resistant plants.  Overuse of nitrogen fertilizers makes sappy new growth. Kelp seems to increase leaf strength.

Garden hygiene: some weeds harbour pests. Chickens can dig over the soil.

Avoid monoculture...Plant similar things or groups of things around the garden not altogether or in rows that a pest can easily follow and decimate or if some get diseased they won't all pass it on to each other.

Which leads to BIODIVERSITY..

Biodiversity increases predators and Plant diversity allows some plants to survive when others get diseased or eaten. 

Balance is easier to attain in a diverse environment.           

wildlife needs food, water and shelter. Providing places for fauna to shelter is a great way to improve diversity in your garden.

Increasing biodiversity is key.

PLANT LOCAL SPECIES: more appropriate for the soil type and climate and will provide food for local birds and insects. Prickly shrubs and grasses are important for birds.

Planting local species can help as this feeds local insects and small fauna such as beneficial insects, skinks, spiders, parasitic wasps.

Structural diversity is important too for birds to be at diff heights. Different levels of vegetation so that small birds can hide. Posts and sticks in the air give birds a place to rest before they hop into a bush or birdbath.

FOOD: Provide food: long flowering shrubs and herbs

It is generally the young of beneficials that do the pest control. It is important to have flowers at all times of year so nectar is always available. 

Herbs, daisies family and parsley family are great, gone to seed veges and salvias, mint etc.

Attracting birds by planting shrubs they can use will control pests then poop, redistributing nutrients around the garden. Never feed birds seed,

Leave some pests as food for the birds in your garden.

Mulch gives invertebrates a place to shelter providing small lizards and frogs with something to eat.

WATER: Provide water: birdbaths - kept clean and full with sticks to escape on; lizard and bee bars  - shallow trays with water and pebbles so they can't drown. 
Ponds. Many birds and insects use ponds in  summer. Birdbaths are also frequented by bees, wasps and other flying things.

SHELTER: Prickly shrubs for birds, piles of wood and or rocks for lizards, spiders etc. Leave wild areas for small fauna, eg gabion walls are great. Ideally these areas should never be disturbed.

Observation is important in all stages of pest control, to make sure you won't kill more than just the pest.  Use a magnifying glass to aid identification and if you can't id it get some help. 

Most pests have a particular time of year when they will be at their worst. Spring is ideal for cabbage white and aphids. Some will overwinter in weeds waiting for conditions to be right. By spending time looking at your plants you can catch pests before they get too bad. This can help decide what needs doing, if anything..

Beneficial Insects and IPM posters.

      

the good guys

the bad guys

If you grow it, they will come.

...well, some of them will. I need a much larger garden to attract other critters but I was extremely pleased this morning to discover a new predatory bug in the garden that I'd never seen before. It was patrolling around on the tomatoes and looking for tiny caterpillars, aphids and other insect eggs. The longer it has been since any chemicals were used in the garden (we never used any to start with), the more varieties of good guys have turned up. It means there must be others around or perhaps the egg or larvae have come from a plant I bought into the garden. Either way, I am hoping there are at least two and that they breed and protect our garden from various annoying small pests.

It's gotta be edible or useful.

I work at a garden centre. It is easy work for me, too easy, I find it boring, but it is permanent part-time, which is handy while I am at uni.

However, I'm less and less interested in selling people anything that isn't edible or native. Why plant an Azalea in that acid soil when you could grow delicious healthful blueberries? Plenty of native plants can grow in semi-shade areas (after all, there was an overstorey of tall Eucalypts or Banksia in most areas to give shade and protection to the plants below. In fact it works both ways, the little plants act as mulch and provide a sanctuary for soil microbes for the larger species to develop).

Flowers do have a place in a garden of course, but it's best if they are insect attracting ones, to encourage pollinators into your garden to help with fruit fertilisation. Beneficial insects rely on pollen to give them the energy to come and lay their eggs in your garden so their young can destroy the bad guys who damage leaves, buds and flowers.

There are plenty of ornamental looking edible species that can be integrated into gardens, so at least there is some edible yield coming out of it. Rainbow chard, lettuces of all kinds and colours, parsley and all the herbs are pretty. Peas can be grown in spots where deciduous vines are bare over winter.

Many fruit trees are also quite handsome too. Many dwarf varieties are available these days so even small gardens can have an orchard of sorts, even in tubs. Citrus are excellent for very sunny spots. Stonefruit love the climate here in Perth. There are effective controls for Mediterranean fruit fly and citrus leaf miner which are both prevalent; regular and dedicated resetting of traps and sprays are necessary for organic control.

Everybody needs to learn how to grow food so get out there and grow something to eat.

Urban agriculture.

Really, everyone should be planting useful and edible plants in their gardens. There are so many beautiful fruit trees and decorative but delicious vegetables to choose from. Theres nothing wrong with a few exotics for show or to attract beneficials and, of course, there needs to be (preferably local) native plants too to support local biodiversity of insects, birds and small reptiles.

Fruit trees have pretty blossoms and if more folk were growing fruit tress and caring for the ones in their garden organically then I suspect that less fruit fly problems would exist, because correct hygiene for fruit fly is quite simple but needs to be done regularly.

With less chemicals for gardens available now and more food gardeners aware of the health benefits of organics there are increasing populations of predatory insects. This year there was a huge aphid population followed within weeks by hundreds of ladybirds and tiny parasitoid wasps. Frogs and small lizards play their part in pest control too, consuming slaters and other bugs.

Make homes for native bees.

A simple way to make some homes for solitary native bees and other insects is to get a big piece of wood, preferably a chunky post or pillar and drill holes in it about 4-6 mm wide for the bees and some a bit bigger for wasps and spiders.

The holes can be on all sides and be 2-3 cm deep. If you don't have a drill maybe try hitting a fat nail in then pulling it back out.
Some wasps can actually chew through the wood a little bit or may use mud to make a cosy coccoon for its babies.

The bees are good pollinators for your garden. Wasps are predatory on caterpillars and insect eggs and some even eat spiders.
This is a good website for native bees.
http://www.zeta.org.au/~anbrc/bluebandedbees.html
http://www.zeta.org.au/~anbrc/beesinyourarea.html

Natural aphid control.

Unlike most people with gardens I actually don't mind if there is an invasion of aphids. This is because I like a lot of the insects that are going to come along and get rid of the aphids. One of the most interesting ones is the tiny wasp called Aphidius. They lay their eggs inside aphids, thereby paralysing them and providing food for their little larvae. Once the new wasp emerges it can then carry on the cycle by laying more eggs inside other aphids. The aphid 'mummies' are a light brown colour and swollen. When the wasp has emerged you can see a tiny round hole in its back.
It's pretty amazing to see how quickly a group of aphids gets turned into mummies. There's a good chance ladybirds will also discover the aphids too. These little helpers in the garden are most likely to visit if you don't use any poisons in the garden.

Huge flower wasp at Samson Park.

The largest bit of bushland in Fremantle is Frederick Samson Park. There are some magnificent tuart trees, some marri and even jarrah. The wildflowers are pretty good in spring and there are 13 kinds of fungi there. I went for a little wander about the other day and came across a beautiful grass tree (Xanthorrhea preissei) in full flower; its spike was all bent and twisted. I realised there was a large (3 cm) black and white striped flower wasp on it. Not only that but he had his girlfriend with him. The female has no wings of her own, so she needs him to come and collect her and take her to the flowers. She normally hangs about on the ground collecting caterpillers, or digging for beetle larvae and the like. She lays her eggs on the grubs, for the larvae to eat when they hatch.
It's not often you see them together. I felt very honoured to see such an amazing sight. Of course I didn't have my camera! Duh.

http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/flower_wasps.htm

Flowers for good insects.

It's good to have flowers in the garden at all times of year. It's not always easy, though. Some seasons are too extreme for flowering plants.
These flowers will attract and maintain hoverflies, lacewings and other useful insects in your garden.
Flowers: daisies, allysum, Queen Anne's lace, mint, thyme, tansy, lemon balm, santolina, caraway.
Vegetables: Gone to see vegies often have good flowers that will attract insects which are beneficial to your garden; such as parasitic wasps, killers of caterpillars.
Veg to let go to seed include: brocolli family of veg, mustards, fennel.
Buckwheat, a grain, is also good for hoverflies. It has blue flowers.

Dragonfly nymph.

I'm pretty pleased to see dragonflies are using our pond to breed.
This is a dragonfly nymph.

The Importance of Bees and Wasps.

The insect family Hymenoptera is very important. There are many interesting and beneficial, yet lesser known, relatives of the commonly seen honey bees and paper wasps.

Australia has many native bees. Many of these are solitary bees, but some live in groups and produce small amounts of honey.

As an aside: Honey bees are used in Australia for honey production, but when swarms get away and become feral they are a nuisance and take the homes of parrots and other native fauna. For instance, cockatoos need certain sized holes in trees to live in. Feral bees also use these holes, and being more aggresive they are able to take nesting holes in trees, reducing much-needed homes for the birds.

Hoverflies
Hoverflies are easily seen in the garden if you stand and watch near flowers for hovering insects that seem to hang in mid-air near flowers. These small fly relatives have larvae that eat small garden pests, such as aphids.
Adult hoverflies rely on pollen and nectar to live so it is a good idea to include plants that have many small flowers. These can include marigolds, allyaum and umbelliferous plants such as dill, fennel and queen Anne's Lace.

Wasps
Australia doesn't have hornets, but we do have some very large wasps. These are spider-wasps, and are upto 4 cm long.
Their job is to hunt down wolf and huntsmen spiders, which they drag back to their burrows in the soil to feed their young.

At the other end of the size scale there are tiny parasitoid wasps, which lay their eggs inside the eggs of other insects. Some are small enough to lay their eggs inside the eggs of aphids.