HelpfulGardener.com

Hi everyone!

My name is Melanie, and I am new here. I was very happy to find this forum filled with helpful advice and tips on how to make your garden better. I decided to write here, because I'm having a serious issue with the pests in my garden, and I don't know what to do. This year there's been a serious growth of different insects and creepy crawlies, and the remedies I bought from the store just won't do the trick. I mean, the problem disappears for a few days or so, but afterwards it returns with full strength, and my vegetables keep getting eaten. Here's a picture of one of the many problems I'm facing:

Besides that, I also have an issue with slugs and caterpillars, which eat my cabbages and everything else they can crawl on. Since most of the gentle chemical solutions didn't work, I would like to try some natural way to remove the pests from my garden. So, I'm open to any suggestions you may have about nature friendly pest control solutions. I am also open to suggestions for a gardening company which takes care of garden pests naturally. So far I found only two companies in my area, which are supposed to be nature friendly - https://www.naturalgardeners.com.au/ and https://www.gardeners-melbourne.com.au/ , but I haven't tried them before, so I don't know if I should call them. I would really appreciate it, if I could find a solution to my issues here. I don't know what the hell is going on with the eco system in Australia lately, but it's not pretty...

We'd be glad to try to help, but it is going to take more information and you hanging in there with us through some back and forth dialogue.

Two secrets to organic gardening and pest control: The ultimate, but longer term, solution is to make your garden a balanced eco-system, with predators (aka beneficial insects, but also birds and others) that control the pests. In the meantime, for the short term, there are organic treatments for most pests. But for those to be effective, you have to know what pest you are dealing with and use the right treatment at the right time, only in problem areas.

Your picture doesn't enlarge very well. I take it it is a lettuce leaf with some kind of soft bodied insect on it - maybe aphids? Soft bodied insects can usually be controlled with soap sprays. You can make your own from water, a LITTLE bit of real soap (ivory soap flakes, Dr. Brunner's, Murphy's oil soap or other true soaps) and a little bit of salad oil. Or you can buy things like Safer's insecticidal soap, which is soap with fatty acids. (Of course I don't know brands that are available in Australia, but maybe you can translate.)

To say anything else, we would have to know what "store bought remedies" you used and what "creepy crawly" things you are dealing with.

Type slugs into the site search box in upper left and you will find tons already here about slug control. I use diatomaceous earth (DE) against them, which works fine except that it has to be reapplied after rain and we've had a very rainy summer, so I gave up. But many people have other organic conrols they swear by, which you will find in the search. DE works against caterpillar type pests, but even better for them is Bt (bacillus thuringiensis, available commercially as Thuricide and other brands). It is a disease that affects only caterpillars and is harmless to everything else.

Welcome to the Forum!