DIY Gardening Trick: Leaves from Kale Plants as Natural Pest Repellent for Healthier Summer Gardens
Garden Pest Control: Tips from Former Royal Gardener Jack Stooks
As the summer season begins, gardens flourish, but so do unwanted pests. However, former royal gardener Jack Stooks has shared some simple and natural methods to keep these pests at bay, ensuring a pest-free growing season for plants, pets, and people.
Stooks, who served as the gardener at Highgrove for over two decades, revealed these easy hacks to SEO experts at Big Fat Links. Here are his top five methods:
- Kale Leaves: A cost-effective method for eliminating slugs involves using kale leaves. You can place the leaves on the soil's surface, particularly in areas known for slug infestations, and cover them with a flat rock. In the early morning, lift the stone to find the slugs hidden beneath the leaf. You can either dispose of the leaf or use the collected slugs as animal feed or compost.
- Torch Light: At night, another useful hack is to utilize a torch to locate and manually remove pests like slugs and snails.
- Beer Traps: Fill a glass jar with beer, place it ground-level in the soil, and cover it with a rock to create a beer trap. Slugs and snails will be attracted to the yeast and drown in the jar.
- Soap Spray: To fight off pests on flowers like roses, prepare a soap and water mixture, and spray it onto your plants of choice. This solution can help control soft-bodied insects.
- Garlic Spray: For protection against herb-eating animals like rabbits, make a garlic spray and spray it over the plants.
Some additional tips for maintaining a pest-free garden include planting peppermint to repel rats, using garden netting pest barriers, placing eggshells around your plants, and applying neem oil or diatomaceous earth. For more severe infestations, you can create a solution by combining dish soap, peppermint oil, and water to spray on your flowerbeds.
By adopting these natural pest control methods, gardeners can maintain a healthy and pest-free garden environment without resorting to harsh chemicals.
Incorporating the home-and-garden practice of gardening, Jack Stooks' advice involves using kale leaves and garlic spray for pest control, aiming to maintain a pest-free lifestyle in the garden. The kale leaves method targets slugs, while the garlic spray protects plants from herb-eating animals like rabbits, offering a natural approach to pest management.
