I tried an experiment since I was encouraging her to give up all forms of pesticides, yes even natural ones. I wanted the garden to be a self-sustaining ecosystem that kept pests in check through balance rather than intervention. I know it seems like an impossible dream, but we succeeded.
- First of all I pruned out the dead wood on these old tree's and then thinned out what was still alive. I also cleared out the brambles and ornamental gingers growing directly under them.
- We grew two successive crops of green manure under these trees.
- We interplanted insect attractant flowers and herbs in every garden bed to increase the biodiversity.
The following season, although the trees did not flower as prolifically as before and we had less fruit. The fruit we did have was unmarred by brown rot and good to eat. I estimated it would take a few years for the trees to bounce back from the hard pruning they had received that winter. But there was no leaf curl, no fruit fly and no brown rot on the fruit.
Two things I believe were important. The green manure improved the soil directly under the trees, and that coupled with the loss of the dead and diseased wood helped the trees to better vitality.
The vastly increased insect population, both in numbers and it's diversity ensured the disappearance of pests we were commonly having trouble with before, namely aphids (we now had an army of ladybugs in the garden) and curl grubs (no idea what happened to them, but I have noted that wherever the earthworms were present in large numbers, curl grubs were not to be found). We also saw a colony of blue banded native bees move into the garden.
I was skeptical about this in the beginning but decided to try something out before I dismissed it. I was astounded at the power of this.