I've heard it said that harsh winters, and low temperatures are good for knocking back garden pests. Is there much truth to this???
Andy :-)
I guess we shall see in a few short months!
Slugs and snails are my worst pests, and they seem to have magnificent survival instincts and are no doubt tucked up somewhere nice and warm for the winter on my plot...........hopefully the whitefly population that seem to cling to my brassicas will have taken a bit of a hammering though!
I'd been wondering about this as well. Fingers crossed!
I've heard it said that a harsh winter is helpful because it kills of pests, but I suspect it's more complicated than that.
I'd guess that a hard winter is going to kill off many creatures, pest and predator, so it's not so clear that a hard winter is helpful because without the predators species the pest populations can grow. But pest/predator numbers vary chaotically anyway and a hard winter is just another variable. So in short, I'd expect a hard winter to have an effect, but what that might be is impossible to say.
But for recent arrivals that have found a toe hold in the recent run of mild winters, especially if they haven't had a natural predator to keep them under control, we might expect to have fewer of them - so maybe leek moth and harlequin ladybird.
I was hoping too, until I read this (albeit an old site!) :'(
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2009/feb/15/gardens-gardeningadvice
Ninny
I think we believe what suits us best, I have always thought when the weather gets cold pests like slugs etc. just go down deeper to keep warm and then come back up. I would so why do we think animals including pests don't, but it is nice to think bad weather does good . ;)
Slug eggs can't go deep. Can anyone confirm that they don't survive freezing?
I find slug eggs all looking healthy enough under slabs, slates etc - hope that they will be affected by the colder weather this year down south.
Yesterday, the temperature rose to about 5 degrees in the back garden, there was about half hour of sunshine if that, and what did I see? great cloud of midges! just goes to show they are all pretty tough and it doesn't take much for them to hatch.
My gut feeling says it does!
I back this up with the fact that I seem to have been troubled with more pests and diseases over the last few years i.e. after mild -ish winters than I used to when we had 'seasons' something we don't seem to have any more (certainly not recently at any rate)
Then there is the other thing 'the animal food chain' if the weather is mild there is a relative abundance of feeding matter whereas in severe weather the predators will seek and eat what ever they can get, which otherwise might have been left alone because they were not 'easy pickings'
This is my thoughts on the matter but I don't think it is as simple as I have made it out to be!
A really hard winter & our Brassica are thick with Aphid!!
So??
My sprouts were awash with thrips when I picked them two weekends ago!
Ninny
Im starting to wonder if the harsh winter theory is true!
Loads of snails coming out on my plot now....