Question
hi charlotte.
i was wondering if i could get some tips to naturally get rid of bugs in my house. i get silverfish (sow bugs). any hints on keeping cats from using my garden as a litter box? i am also thinking of growing clover in my backyard rather than grass, the grass i have there now is very patchy.  any suggestions or recommendations?  thank you so much. tracy

Answer
Hi Tracy;
Silverfich are older than dinosaurs, or so we are told.

Identification: Slender, flattened, wingless, segmented, silver-gray and black, covered with scales. End of abdomen has three tail-like filaments. Firebrats are very similar but much darker.

Natural control: Spiders.

Organic control: Indoor control is all that is ever needed. Natural diatomaceous earth, boric acid, and plant oil products.

I used to get silverfich and earwigs in my bathtubs, but since i have been using rosemary in my house, i don't have them.
I have used cedar for a long time, and had them then, but i started using rosemary and lavender at the same time, and no longer have either silverfish, earwigs are spiders. Not sure if one or both of the herbs together are the cause.
Rosemary keeps roaches out, lavender keeps houseflies out. Both help repel fleas and some other insects.
Lavender helps you relax and go to sleep, rosemary is one of the relaxing herbs too, but put a drop or two of lavender on a stuffed cuddly toy, give it to a fusy baby, and it will help them drop right off to sleep.
I put a small piece of rosemary on each cabinet and cupboard shelf, under each appliance, in the corner of closets, anywhere roaches can come in or hide, and you NEVEr see a roach in my house.
I have tons of them living in the soil in my yard. That is great because they eat some harmful insects and by tunneling through the earth, help to keep it aerated.
Well, if you follow an organic program and use sugar to keep the beneficial microbes alive, you will not grow clover, because clover likes poor soil. clover is one of the "weeds" I had that I really didn't mind that much, because I an an artist, and different textures and shades appeal to me, but it went the way of the other weeds when I started using sugar, and went totally organic.
Look at the shade in your back yard.
If you have too much shade to sustain grass, and you don't want to prune out some limbs of trees or shrubs to get more sun, you might consider one of the many shade loving ground covers.
Go to     www.garden.org    and look up ground covers. Yu can see pistures of what they look like, and some even bloom with beautiful little flowers.
Watering deep to encourage a good deep root system will help your lawn maintain.
Deep roots help protect against heat, cold and draught damage, and when you water shallow, the roots have to come to the surface to get water, they die and collect other lawn debris, and that forms thatch. then you have to do the HARD job of dethatching.
NEVER scalp a lawn!!!
I always water to a depth of at least 6 inches. About 1 inch of rainfal soaks down about 6 inches, so watering with a sprinkler takes a lot longet than an hour or so of watering.
I water with a soaker hose, turn it on until water starts to run off onto the sidewalk, then turn it off for an hour or so to let it soak in, then do it again, until I have it wetted down at least 6 inches. then rewater when the top two inches of soil are dry.
If you go away for a few days, and it gets drier,you are not going to come back to dead grass.
even in our hot Texas summers, I water only once a week, unless the temp stays over 100 for several days, then I look at my grass, and if it looks stressed, I water.
St.Augustine will fol it's blades to look like skinny reeds, to minimize the area exposed to the sun and evaporation, so when it folds up like that, I know it really needs to be watered THEN.

Write anytime, I am glad to help.
Charlotte
PS:
OOPS, the kitties and their litter box.
Just get some lemons, chop up the peels and scatter them in the beds where you want the kitties to stay out of. don't forget to put them in any containes you are growing plants in too.
Every time I use a lemon, I chop the peels, and throw them in my flower beds and containers, and keep a mental grid of where i threw the last ones, to keep a pretty even renewal up.
In early spring, I buy about a dozen lemons, make lemonade or sqweeze them and freeze the juice for lemon pies ets, and chop the peels and scatter them. It desn't take a lot of pieces of peels to repel the little pests, just a thin scattering.
Lemon scented cat repelants don't work. I know, I tried every one that was on the market.
fresh lemon peels do it.
Freash orange peels repel fire ants.
C