Pests More Obvious Than The Damage

Please tell me what I can do about the ants in my garden: they seem to be becoming more and more of a problem each year. I find the heaps of fine soil on the lawn and in the flowerbeds and they drive us mad when they invade the terrace, where we try to eat lunch or the children try to play.

Although it is certainly possible to reduce the number of ants in your garden, I'm afraid to say that it is highly unlikely that you will ever succeed in eradicating them completely. I suggest that you concentrate your efforts on trying to kill off the ants in those nests that are causing real problems.

The best thing you can do is to treat the nests with any one of the many proprietary ant powders or dusts, or with one of the sprays. There are many different ones available and it is important that you try to disturb the nest before treating the inhabitants. To do this you may wish to protect yourself by wearing a pair of wellingtons and ensure that you disturb the nest using a garden fork, rather than by hand.

Phytophthora infestans. Ideally you should practise a two-to-three-year crop rotation, which should ensure that the disease will not carry on from year to year. Infection of the tubers is likely to have taken place if the infected foliage was left on the plant, as this will have allowed spores to be washed down into the soil as soon as it rained or you irrigated the crop.Next year, if you grow potatoes again you could consider spraying with a copper-based fungicide, such as Traditional Copper or Bordeaux Mixture, or an unrelated fungicide called Dithane 945. Ideally the chemical should be applied as soon as any weather conditions that are likely to encourage blight develop.