Two years ago I bought ladybird larvae as they devour aphids. Turns out that they can’t handle ants, though, and although they saved some leaves the aphid population didn’t shrink enough to allow the shrub to bloom.
Also, larvae are difficult to control. You put them on a leave with a bunch of aphids and they just… wander off.
Yeah I realised when I found a ladybird and put it on a leaf covered in aphids - within seconds several ants were annoying it until it flew away!
Can't remember where I got the sticky trunk advice, but it seems to work well, and it's a mechanical rather than insecticidal way of stopping the aphid farms. We have a lot of ants around our home. They go to panic stations when I apply the stuff!
It's kind of gross though. And the trunks have an ugly sticky ring around them.
@sarajw Yes, it’s a challenge to battle pests with environmentally friendly means. The best approach seems to be: don’t grow it. The same goes for stuff that naked snail like to eat: you can fight and feed them drunk all you want but the best is to grow stuff they don’t eat.
We've finally got a first real flower bed in our garden and have planted some stuff, which the slugs are clearly enjoying! I agree it feels wrong to put down pellets or something, best just learn from what they do and don't go for..
@sarajw@simeon (Oh those are amazing!) Not sure really, would need to be someone who wants to try a load of stuff that'll be fun & creative but may or may not lead anywhere (the vole site has made a decent chunk of money but sort of by accident). Understandably, very few people have the time & motivation to do stuff for little or no money to see what happens
@sarajw The way I'm imagining it is either a separate domain (eg grub dot wtf) or a branded area of site with its own quirky feel (& existing food projects would perhaps get moved over), depending on tone & quantity. See whether lots of easy & fun ideas come to mind (I'm always keen for people to be lazy & do what they find easy & fun)
@sarajw Subdomain might make sense, and it wouldn't be hard to set something up that'd give you ability to control HTML/CSS & deploy from repo without faff if you wanted to do that, while also letting me add some automated nav/cross-promotion & integrate with main site
If you email volewtf@gmail.com I can send some more info
@sarajw I think, but am not completely sure yet, that a compost heap/bin helps keep them away from other stuff as it gives them enough to chew on so they don’t go scavening for food.
We’ve had our compost bin for two season now and 1) it’s full of slugs, and 2) I think I see less wandering around the garden. But, the latter might be due to hotter/drier weather. (1/2)
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