Many gardeners and even professional crop growers are very satisfied with themselves if they take a step back from using chemical insecticides and revert to using natural, old-fashioned pesticides.
And it is right, they have, but did you know that there is yet another step back too? A step backward in time that does not involve spraying of any kind at all.
So, here are a few things to try before using natural pesticide.
If you are having problems with slugs, half bury a few jam jars in your flower beds and put some beer into them, about two or three inches deep.
Slugs do not care about the type of the beer.
It can be cider, lager or beer; it can be left-overs or flat.
Slugs are acutely addicted to beer and they will drink themselves into a state of unconsciousness, fall into the beer and drown.
Even if there are a dozen deceased slugs in the beer, other slugs will still come and drink from the jar.
Empty the jars every day or they start to smell and refill with beer for that night's party.
You can quickly reduce your garden's slug population in this manner.
If you are having trouble with ants of any kind, you could buy a container of nematodes.
These are tiny insects that live in the ground and feed on any insects in the ground that they come across.
Ants and termites are a natural source of food.
Nematodes can clear a nest in a week or two.
Buy them from a farming or garden centre, mix them with rain water and tip the water over trouble areas.
Natural predators are a very useful way of controlling pest insects.
Harmless lizards and snakes are good for this job.
However, cats will kill these animals.
My neighbour's two cats have cleared the surrounding gardens of lizards in the last six months alone.
Whereas I used to see lizards hunting every day, I have not seen any for weeks.
This will affect our plants unfavorably, so from now on those cats are not welcome in our garden.
Cats will also discourage birds from coming into a garden and birds eat thousands or insects a week each.
I still have a lot of birds in the garden, but they only hunt in the rose bushes now where the cats fear to go.
You can try growing the plants that you would use as natural insecticides in among the plants that you would spray them on.
For instance, greenfly do not like garlic and some gardeners spray their rose bushes with crushed garlic and water, but you can get the same result from growing garlic under your roses.
One garlic is not sufficient, you will need half a dozen or more per bush, but what is the problem with that? You can eat or sell the garlic.
Wireworms can be lured into tin cans and destroyed.
Take a large can, put in a layer of vegetable peelings and punch holes in the sides of it with a screw driver.
Empty it every few days.
There are a lot more ways of destroying or deterring pests in the garden without using any form of pesticide at all, but you will have to look for those yourself.