I don抰 know about you, but I do object when something uninvited gatecrashes my greenhouse and starts to eat my plants. I love sharing fresh, home-grown produce with others, but others of my choice. It wouldn抰 be quite so bad if they simply ate a leaf or two, but more often than not they distort and disfigure the plants so that they can抰 grow to their full potential and this affects the yield. The Greenhouse Bean Feast is not an open invitation to help yourself.

But I have a problem, I抳e never been good at killing anything, even bugs and slugs, and though that may be a shock to many gardeners, I do believe that everything has its place in the food chain and the greater cycle of life. So when the bugs invade I don抰 reach for the chemicals. Pesticides aren抰 clever enough to know that I don抰 want the aphids but I do want the hoverflies, the bees and the lacewings. Pesticides destroy many beneficial creatures that get in their path and they also deprive other creatures of a meal. In the garden a plague of aphids provides a healthy meal for long tailed tits, ladybirds and hoverfly larvae. It抯 a little different in the glasshouse because this is a manmade environment where nature is not in complete balance, I have created an artificial environment where many pests can thrive and prosper without their natural predators. Of course I leave the windows open for easy access to all creatures at this time of year, but the balance can and sometimes does, become a little lopsided. After a couple of flower shows, with the plants dependent on self watering systems to keep them watered and a spell of cold weather, the compost got too wet. Fungus flies have a field day. Then the arrival of some unexpected plants just before Chelsea, bearing some uninvited guests and very soon, in my absence a little colony of aphids has built up too.

So now the battle lines are drawn and as always I have my favourite secret weapon to hand. A quick call to Green Gardener, a family run business that supplies biological control mail order, is the simplest, kindest and fastest way to remove these gatecrashers from my precious plants and my private greenhouse. I can抰 recommend their dawn to dusk help line enough and have lost count of the rescue remedies they have speedily despatched to my greenhouse in need over the years. And so, in response to the latest message of distress, arrives neat packages of bug busting agents. All naturally occurring, all organic and all effective and speedy too, but the best thing is that these critters do the work for me, I don抰 have to spray, squash or murder anything, instead these bugs do it for me. I suppose some might say that抯 like hiring an assassin, but I don抰 agree, all I have done is restored a little of the natural balance by introduing predators that exist naturally outside the grrenhouse into this protected environment. It抯 a great lesson for beginners and children. In the natural world, for every problem there is a solution, for every pest there is a predator and for every creature there is a meal. By choosing to introduce natural predators you increase the populations of these beneficial creatures and provide them with a food source, a safe habitat with shelter and the right conditions to breed. For gardeners this is a win win scenario. For the dratted fungus flies a sprinkling of Hypoaspis onto the affected compost quickly deals with the problem by eating the fly larvae. For the aphids a two pronged attack is planned and dispatched: introduce two biological controls, Aphidoletes and Aphidius. Aphidoletes is used for large aphid colonies on a few plants. It抯 is a naturally occurring midge, the larvae of which feed on a large number of aphid species. Aphidius is used for small numbers of aphids spread over a number of plants. Aphidius is a naturally occurring aphid parasite and it is capable of attacking over 40 aphid species. Special mixed packs are available.

Greenhouse gardeners all over the UK should know about Green Gardener (www.greengardener.co.uk; 01603 715096), they offer a safe and effective way to keep glasshouses free of problem pests. They are real gardeners that have the answers to your greenhouse and garden pest issues and they care about the planet.