Story: Natural Insect Control
Episode: 2
Presenter: Trevor Cochrane
Air Date: 22nd August 2020

If you don’t like using chemicals, there are a number of natural and organic ways of ridding your garden of pests.

• Sticky traps capture a lot of different bugs and different bugs are attracted to different colours.
• Different coloured sticky traps can attract different insects. Fruit flies and whiteflies are attracted to the colour yellow, as well as winged scales, leafhoppers, midges, mealybugs, and winged aphids.
• Another technique is to get a yellow jar or bowl and fill it with salty water. This will attract the bugs who will drink the saltwater, collapse and drown.
• Blue is another colour that can be used on sticky traps. The colour blue, especially light blue, will attract thrips and mites.
• Sticky traps can be purchased, or you can apply honey to coloured card.
• Avoid using snail pellets as they are extremely toxic and can pose a threat to your pets and native wildlife.
• A beer trap is an effective way of getting rid of snails and slugs. The hops and yeast will attract them from a few metres away and they will fall into the container and drown.
• Snails are molluscs and cannot stand high levels of copper, so applying a copper spray will either repel or kill them.
• You can also purchase copper tape to wrap around pots and borders to control them.