New Pests in the Garden

The area where I live has been identified as ground zero in the search for a new Pest – a newly arrived Fruit Fly that has authorities in NZ worried. So much so they are asking the public to keep an eye out for it so it can be destroyed before it gets a foothold here.

It arrived from Queensland, Australia. and so far eight fruit flies have been captured in the 3 months since Biosecurity NZ started laying traps to find it.

Interestingly, the Queensland fruitfully is not the only new insect pest to arrive in NZ recently. Regular readers of my blog will have heard me mention a worm infestation that ruined my plums this year. At first I thought it was Codling Moth and I was determined to do something about it this year even if it meant having to spray.

When I described the symptoms to the good people down at the Garden Centre,  they told me it wasn't Codling Moth at all, but a new pest called Guava Moth. The bad news is there's nothing that can be done about it – at least not yet. The Guava Moth too, is a new arrival from Australia. It was first detected in the far north of NZ but it has gradually spread farther south to Auckland and is thriving in our temperate conditions.

The Guava Moth has the potential to decimate fruit crops and in my view is a much bigger problem than the Fruit Fly as it affects ripening fruit on the tree. I saw it for the first time in my garden 2 years ago but this year it totally ruined my plums, pleaches and feijoas. Strangely, despite the name of this pest, my Guava bush has been unaffected.

The Aukland council website has this to say...

More information about the Guava Moth can be found on the Auckland council website

The 'Back to Eden' gardening method

I recently heard about an approach to organic gardening that has confirmed a lot of my own thoughts regarding the seemingly elusive, natural approach to gardening. For me it ticks all the boxes by encouraging the garden to function as it was designed to, naturally, without the use of complicated chemicals, sprays and fertilising systems.

The method I refer to has been dubbed 'Back to Eden' which recognises that the systems that work best are already there in nature, we just need to understand them and work with them. I’ve thought about this a great deal over the years with all my efforts to compost and feed the soil naturally, but I have struggled to know exactly what I should be doing and how, until I watched a documentary film on u-tube recently entitled the 'back to eden' gardening method which focusses on imitating nature by covering the soil and mulching, which brings huge benefits to the soil.

There’s a short version of the film which goes for about 20mins (use link above), and a longer version that goes for 1 hour and 43 minutes. If you can spare the time I recommend the long one as it has lots of interesting interviews and examples showing the various conditions it applies to and the various results attained. Having said that, I watched the shorter one first which is like a trailer but I was intrigued, so I watched the full version which you can see here.

If you believe the earth is the product of an All-wise Creator then you may appreciate the various quotations from the bible that inspired the Author Paul Gautschi and which he makes reference to. If not, it doesn't matter, because it all makes such perfect sense regardless.

The movie has already inspired me to make plans for a renewed focus in my garden, which thankfully only requires a bit of tweaking. Suffice to say, there are 2 words that sum up this approach to gardening, Sustainability and Permaculture.

You may hear me talk about aspects of this method in my garden moving forward.