Whether we like it or not, a healthy vegetable garden will always attract pests of all shapes and sizes. But it can be quite disheartening to find your vegetable leaves and plants with holes after bugs chewed through them.
But no agricultural problem is too big for Mzansi’s farmers and some of them are unearthing clever ways of stopping insects from wreaking havoc on their vegetables. Here’s a look at a few unique ways farmers get rid of garden pests.
Household ingredients to the rescue
Babalwa Mpeyel, a Western Cape crop farmer from Abalimi Bezekhaya, has developed a smart plan to protect her cabbages, cauliflower, and lettuce. Mpeyel creates a special mixture using chopped onion, white garlic and chilli, and dishwashing liquid. She puts this in water and sprays it on her crops.
According to Mpeyel, this protects her vegetable from cutworms, imported cabbageworm, cabbage looper, diamondback moth larvae, and cross-striped cabbage worms.
“These methods really work!” she exclaimed. “Some people might not agree with it, but what really helps is consistency. You need to keep doing this on a continuous basis and you will see, the plant will talk to you by growing safely.”
Bicarbonate soda and oil
Often Mpeyel uses bicarbonate of soda mixed with cooking oil and washes the crops gently with a soft cloth or sponge. An alternative method is using wood ash, diluted with cooking oil, which can also be used to wash the crop with it.
She added that another way of protecting young shoots is by planting them inside a cardboard tissue cylinder in the field. The cylinder will protect the shoot from worms and by the time it decomposes, the shoot has fully grown into a strong crop that is too hard to be consumed by worms. “I like these methods because they work,” she said.
Pheromone traps
Meanwhile, Dibesho Serage, a crop farmer in Lebowakgomo in Limpopo, has kept things more traditional. She uses pheromone traps to protect her nectarines and peaches.
“We employ organic methods such as pheromones traps to eliminate male species, which means they can’t mate with female species, this helps in naturally eradicating the population of various pests,” he said.
Intercropping works!
Another farmer, Philani Mzila runs his own crop farm in Johannesburg and leans on modern methods, such as intercropping.
Intercropping is the practice of planting more than one crop type in proximity or in the same field. Some farmers usually intercrop maize rows, inter-planted with either beans or cowpeas.
“I think growing crops under a shade net [helps] to protect from hail, and crop rotation [helps] to prevent disease,” he said.
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