NO SYSTEM FOR BEE'S

It may be pure luck, but I've never had a problem with pest insects in the garden. It may be down to the choice of plants or the planting regime, but I always tried to grow stuff based on the companion gardening technique. I'm not knowledgeable enough to give a definitive answer, so I can only tell you my experience.

Rosemary is supposed to repell aphids for example. I got aphids in the garden, but they never bother anything that was in close proximity to my rosemary.

I did once see a load of ants crawling all over my coriander. I was mortified until I had a closer look. The ants weren't harming the coriander, they were collecting geen flies and taking them away. I found this bizarre until I read that ants sometimes 'farm' green flies.

I also like to grow nasturtium. Initially for its value as an ornamental plant, then I discovered that it is edible, then that the bees loves it, and then that so do slugs, caterpillars and greenflies. The thing is it grows so vigourously that it doesn't really suffer from the interest of these pests, so it acts as a good decoy plant. In fact I could sing the praises of nasturtium for ages but that would be a different topic.

Like I said, I'm not an authority on the matter, I'm just writing about my experience. Others may disagree, I may have just been lucky.

The bottom line is I've never needed to use insecticides, and always (with the exception of this year because my new garden is currently dug over mud) had a garden that is a hive of activity with all sorts of things crawling, buzzing and fluttering in it. Oh and one blackbird that liked to spend much of its spare time walking around with its eyes intently focuses on the ground. And Stephen, who was a hedgehog.

 

Very rare that we use insectides. I use them on ornametals in the greenhouse, but that's about it.

My cropping greenhouse tends to get invaded by whitefly (I plant French Marigolds, and put up sticky yellow cards).

My Brassicas are covered with scaffolder's debris netting to keep the Cabbage White butterflies off (so don;t need to chemically attack them) and as a consequence are a swarm of whiteflys too.

But I don't really want chemicals on my food, no matter how safe the destructions :D say they are.

 

"Hey farmer farmer, put away your DDT, give me spots on my apples,
just leave me the birds and the bees."

Joni Mitchell