Natural warfare

Back in April I did some freelance work for iafrica and they asked me to write an article on eco-friendly gardening. The problem is I'm honestly the worlds worst gardener. Especially for an ecologist, a conserver of nature, I have killed far too many potplants and vegetables seedlings. It turns out, however, that you dont have to gardent to write gardening artcicles  because they published it.

The link to the online article is here: http://lifestyle.iafrica.com/article/613939.html but below is my version.

 A while back I decided to convert a forgotten area at the back of my garden into an organic vegetable patch. It was all going according to plan until, as I began to turn the soil, I uncovered something so horrible, so terrifying that I nearly gave up right then and there. I uncovered a creature that strikes fear into the hearts of most South Africans, a creature synonymous with terror and standing upon your toilet screaming, a creature that has been known to send grown men running: A parktown prawn.

While there are many species of king crickets in South Africa the parktown prawn, scientific name: Libanansidas vittatu , has achieved special acclaim among those in northern Johannesburg, whose gardens they commonly inhabit.

Now faced with this nightmare I fought the urge to run. As the little cricket, no bigger than my thumb lunged at my head, I fought the urge to hit it with my spade. And as it lunged at my head again the reason I flicked into the nearby shrub and not the neighbour’s garden was simple. I like spinach.

A single adult Parktown Prawn, can consume up to four snails a night and snails wreak havoc with my spinach. What is more, the parktown prawn also feeds on snail larvae, dropped fruit and dog droppings.

If I was going to go the organic route and have an all natural garden, I needed to accept it, Prawns and all. What most people, and often most gardeners, miss is that they key to a healthy and successful garden is a healthy ecosystem. If specific organism is eradicated or targeted in a garden then other organisms may also be mistakenly eradicated.

A common example is that of aphids and lady birds. Most chemical aphid poisons also kill lady birds, an aphid predator. Since the lady bird life cycle is longer than that of aphids it is likely the aphids will recover faster and be more numerous than before by the time the lady bird population in your garden has recovered. Usually a gardener will then apply more poison and the pest eradication cycle often continues until one is entirely dependent on the poison for aphid control. If simple repellent plants were instead planted alongside ones roses, to deter aphids, then the aphid population could be kept in check by natures own devices.

With this in mind, when a few days later I found a rain spider on the wall above my bed and I didn’t scream or reach for a can of deadly insect killer. I simply escorted the scary, hairy fellow outside because rain spiders eat parktown prawns.