The goodies in your garden

Earwig, lacewing, ladybird, the goodies on your fruit trees. Photos courtesy of (from left) Tom Sinon, Andy McDowall, Ravichri, all from flickr.com

While we are all enjoying the wonderful spell of warm dry weather, do make time to visit your trees and see if all is well with them. There are baddies around which will be harming your trees especially now! Look after the real friends of your fruit trees which are trying to do their best to produce crops you will enjoy.

At this time of the year there are many visitors in and around your fruit trees. Some are good, others are harmful. The fruit trees defenders, to keep the baddies in check, are the ladybirds, the earwigs and the lacewings. These friends will do their best to stop greenfly of all sorts from gaining the upper hand and ruining the leaf surface. Damage to leaves makes it more difficult for trees to make their various foods. Encourage the lacewings, ladybirds and earwigs by providing them with homes to live in and do not kill them off with harsh chemical sprays. There are plenty of sprays which can be used in the gardens and small orchards, based on organic principles, which will do this job very well.

Talking about providing homes for beneficial insects and various other living creatures, do spare a thought to the small birds in and around your garden. These have insect-based diets and get rid of many aphids and caterpillars. The large family of blue tits and long tail tits are just a few birds of them. Make sure you have nest boxes at the right places for them to make their homes in your garden. One final point: when your fruit trees are in blossom, do not spray them with anything. Wait until the blossom is over. That’s the time to visit your trees weekly and monitor what is going on. If the leaves are curling or showing signs of drought, be ready to water your trees and take action. If too many aphids are curling up the leaves and therefore harming your trees drastically, reduce their numbers.