Gardening Galore

Attractants can be used to attract ants; sugar water for the sweet-toothed ants; for termites, giving them something eat so they don’t have to eat your plants and lawn. This can be sawdust, maize stover or any woody material. Don’t be too clinical in the garden. Fallen leaves and twigs don’t have to be swept up and burnt or composted. Leave the leaf-litter where it falls, run over it with the lawnmower to cut it up into a mulch. This will feed earthworms, termites and other beneficial insects, which in turn will attract birds who eat the bugs in the leag litter. Ants do predate a lot of leaf-eating bugs and their eggs. They are beneficial insects.

Termites

Soil disturbances upset the pest/predator balance among termites and favours those which are more likely to attack plants. Termite attack on plants is related to the loss of organic matter in the soil, so increasing this by use of composts, manures and mulching should be practiced. Generally termites only attack stressed and weaker plants especially moisture-stress, so practicing conservation tillage which reduces surface runoff should be used when there is no foot available to termites. They have no option but to attack green plants. By mulching and leaving litter on the ground, they will consume these or you can feed them with dry grass, twigs and leaves.

Try to avoid having bare, dry, disturbed residue-free soil around your plants. If there is a visible termite mound, digging it open, destroying the fungus fern and killing the queen, then backfilling with organic rich soil should sort the problem out. Chickens and bantams love to eat termites.

Termite-controlling plants include aloe vera, crown plant, calotropis gigantica, knobwood plant, zanthozylum chalybeum, neem azadirachta indica, snake bean tree, Swartzia madagascariensis and tobacco. Wood ash and cow dung spray are also effective.

The snake bean (or mulundu) is indigenous, so grass or pounded leaves mixed with a litre of water, allowed to infuse for twelve to twenty fours hours, strain and spray or drench termite nests.

Ants and Aphids

The small black ants attracted to aphids and scale insects are attacked by the honeydew secretions from the sap suckers. The ants farm the aphids around the plants if the infestation is severe, so find the ant nest and destroy the eggs. Birds and chickens can help here too.

These farmer ants can be effectively deterred by sprays made from black jack seeds or Mexican marigold leaves, stalks etc. Others are leaves of rhubarb, tomato, lantana. Infusions of tobacco, garlic and chili sprays will work well.

As you can see, some of our common weeds and vegetables have other uses. These sprays should have soap added to act as a spreader.

If any readers would like us to cover specific subjects in future articles or if you have any gardening queries, please contact the author of our monthly column on email at pete@kantemba.com or by phone on 096 747-990.