Friendship With The Weeds. Part 2

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Huge hordes of leaf-gnawing and sucking insects, microscopic inhabitants of the underworld, all kinds of rodents strive to leave the hardworking gardener without a crop. But nature took care of man, creating ubiquitous weeds to help them

Assorted enemies

Not only people love to eat vegetables. Such lovers of gnawing vegetable leaves or sucking out all the juices from them, like the prolific and gluttonous aphids, whiteworms, scoops, are ubiquitous and dangerous. No less problems are created by the Colorado potato beetle, gnawing everything in its path, the bear, wireworms.

The most annoying and prolific that every gardener has to face are ticks and aphids. The fertility of aphids is simply amazing. If it had not been eaten by other insects (ladybug, golden-eyed), not destroyed by people, then one female aphid in one year would give the world offspring that would cover the surface of the entire globe in a continuous layer.

There are pests that eat everything, and there are those that specialize in certain types of plants. The Colorado potato beetle, for example, prefers plants of the Solanaceae family (potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes). And plants of the Cruciferous family (cabbage, turnip, radish, mustard) were chosen for themselves by white women, cabbage scoop, cabbage moth.

Weeds against pests

Nature has created poisons that destroy the pests listed above, and hid them in such plants that a person attributed to the category of weeds and tries to get rid of them in every way. Among them: brave burdock, bitter wormwood, larkspur (or larkspur, delphinium, pickling), spotted hemlock, euphorbia, black henbane, malicious weed - bitter weed, chamomile, dandelion, horse sorrel.

In addition, vegetable tops are used to combat ticks and aphids. For example, potato and tomato tops. Garlic, tobacco, onion husks, yarrow, celandine are also useful.

Gorchak

God forbid this weed to get into your garden. Its powerful roots extend up to 15 meters deep to water its leaves, flowers and seeds. They also actively grow to the sides, giving life to new shoots, leaving no chance for neighboring plants to live. In addition, their roots exude toxic substances that inhibit the growth of other plants.

Producers of edible cereal plants have recorded the Gorchak weed as a vicious quarantine weed, since in the fields where the Gorchak settled, the yield is reduced by 30-40 percent against the expected.

But, if the bitterness grows outside the outskirts of the village, then you should not be lazy and stock up on its grass during the flowering period in order to fight with aphids with its help.

A decoction is prepared for the fight. A kilogram of chopped grass is added to a ten-liter bucket of water and the contents of the bucket are boiled for half an hour. After removing the bucket from the oven, allow the water to cool. Filter the broth and add 30 grams of soap to it. They fill a sprayer with broth and engage in a duel with aphids, located on the leaves of vegetables.

Burdock or burdock

Of course, if the clinging burdock fills the whole garden, then the unfortunate vegetable grower will not see the harvest. But 3-5 tall burdocks, left on the site for preventive and military actions, will not only help fight pests, but also completely replace exotic capricious palms with their beautiful appearance.

The very presence of burdock next to a vegetable garden or a row of potatoes already frightens off many lovers of profit at someone else's expense. In addition, an infusion is prepared from finely chopped burdock leaves, which is sprayed with plants chosen by sucking and leaf-eating pests. It takes three days to cook, chopped burdock leaves half full of the pot, and water added to the very edge of the pot. After three days, the infusion is filtered and sent to the front line.

Attention

Vegetables treated with bitterness or burdock infusion can be eaten no earlier than 5 days after the battle.