Guest blog: Why experienced gardener Adam Jones from @adamynyrardd champions organic gardening to combat pests

I was fortunate to be brought up with my grandfather’s passion for growing homegrown vegetables and would often be found crawling in and around his plants, stealing a strawberry or five.

My grandfather was a traditional post-wartime gardener that cultivated his own crops to feed the family. He used all manner of chemicals in the gardens to ward off pests. It truly was the norm at the time, but as a teenager I started to notice that productivity of the garden was decreasing while the instances of plant disease were increasing. There was also a stark reduction in pollinators such as hoverflies and bumble bees visiting the garden.

I was very conscious that the ways and means of gardening that I was accustomed to were having a huge detrimental effect on my surrounding environment. Therefore, when my wife and I bought our first home five years ago, we made the decision to revert back to growing completely organically. Why do I say revert back? Because that was the norm pre-world war 2 in Wales and across Europe. Organic isn’t a new concept.

We also began to understand and respect the ecology of our growing space and learned to garden with nature. We went no-dig, whereby we do not turn the soil at all, but instead add layers of compost annually to the soil. One of the biggest advantages of going no-dig is about nurturing biodiversity, supporting all kinds of life forms in our gardens and not only those that we can actively see but also nurturing the health of our soil – just because we can’t see all those microorganisms it doesn’t mean they aren’t important.

Most soil life is found fairly close to the surface, where it’s accessible to new roots, but by tilling or digging it we’re constantly disrupting that rich biodiverse habitat and moving those organisms away from our plants.  I’m firmly of the belief that no garden can claim to be nature friendly if it’s constantly dug over and disrupted.

We also use companion planting in our garden, this is the concept that some plants can support others to grow strong and healthy if they are planted close to each other.

We interplant onions with carrots to ward off both onion fly and carrot fly as the fragrance of their foliage confuses these pests in the garden. We grow French Marigolds in the greenhouse to ward off whitefly. French Marigolds are also fantastic in combating slug problems. Both slugs and snails much prefer the leaves of French Marigold before that of your salad crops or brassicas therefore by planting them in a border around your crops you can reduce slug damage significantly without the need for any pesticides. You still get strong and healthy marigold plants as they’re quick growing and resilient and can withstand slug damage well.

Planting insect friendly plants really helps against pests and draws pollinators into the garden which increases crop yields. We have planted salvias, liatris spicata, calendulas, and lupins which attract natural predators such as birds, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps which eat caterpillars, slugs, and aphids. These plants also attract all kinds of bees and butterflies which pollinate our crops.

By gardening in a way that encourages nature into the garden, pest management has never been a big problem. I believe that as gardeners we are only one small part of the garden and nature is the driving force every time.

Nature has an amazing way of finding the balance – the worst thing we can possibly do as gardeners is tip that balance in the wrong direction. It’s inevitable that some crops will be lost to pest damage but if you have a healthy ecosystem in your garden, any damage should be minimal.

Going no dig and gardening organically has allowed me to restore that balance. We are seeing such diverse insect, bird and mammal life in our garden that wasn’t there five years ago, whilst at the same time we are maintaining a highly productive growing space.

The beauty of organic gardening is that many of these methods were used by our great, great grandparents in the garden. Join me and garden in a way that respects our environment – it’s great fun! 

Adam’s pesticide-free recipe

If you would like to reduce the amount of caterpillars and slugs that are eating your crops, try making your own pesticide-free spray with garlic, cayenne pepper and vegetable oil.

·      Mix 1tbs of cayenne pepper, 1tbs of ground garlic, 1tbs of oil with 500ml of water and place in a spray bottle as a foliar spray

·      Spray on all your leaves every 7-10 days and you will notice a big reduction in damaged leaves

This doesn’t harm the insects, it instead leaves a nasty taste after eating the leaves and therefore they tend to move off to other plants.

About the author

Adam is a 28-year-old expert gardener who’s passionate about growing food sustainably in a way that enriches the biodiversity of his garden, which in turn also increases its productivity. Adam is a regular face on the Welsh magazine programme Prynhawn Da and has a gardening slot on BBC Radio Cymru 2. You can find out more about Adam’s work by visiting his website www.adamynyrardd.cymru or following him on social media @adamynyrardd.