Remorse

It looks as though the bug spray's worked. Now I feel bad that I didn't use an organic one, but previous experience has been that organic pest spray is pretty ineffective. This aphid infestation was really serious, I didn't feel as though I had time to experiment with gentle pest control - I had to nuke them before they killed all my plums. However, now that my (shrivelled) leaves appear to be only harbouring dead aphids, I am feeling ashamed that I turned to chemical warefare so easily.

It's difficult to know where to draw the line. Normally, I use natural pest control, with a bit of help from washing up liquid sprayed onto persistant bugs such as black fly on the beans, I buy organic peat free compost as an addition to home made, I get my seeds from an organic supplier but the one thing I've never been able to do without is blue metaldehyde based slug pellets. We'd never have any produce if I didn't. So, where does that leave me now? A not very organic gardener. With organic intentions that got washed away with the first onset of a problem.

It's very easy to sit in judgement of the agrochemical industry but at the moment I'm uncomfortably grateful to it.

Happy gardening, whether you're deep dyed green or wishy washy green, like me.