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Parts of my garden have resembled something of a battleground this year. Why is it that all my favourite plants and crops have their very own pest to contend with? Grow lilies and you'll be hard pressed not to find lily beetle munching them. My

Fungal rusts have been pretty prolific this year, which is not surprising, as they thrive in damp and muggy conditions.The film of moisture left on foliage after rainfall provides the perfect conditions for rust spores to germinate. Infections such as rose rust and hollyhock rust...

I'm an animal lover. I love them all - be they wild, domesticated, farm animals, even pests. My vote always seems to go with those naturally decked in fur or feathers, scales or indeed exoskeletons. It's not always easy; I try to eat a fair

pests out there which we, in Britain, will never have to deal with in our gardens.For example in Trinidad there is a large ant (about 1cm long) called a bachak that will (along with a few hundred friends) quickly demolish a garden. They even eat onions

and the leaves of the plants. With my perverse interest in pests and pathogens, I find blight quite interesting. And this year has been especially interesting, as both the crop and the disease thrived. Next year, Suttons Seeds is launching a new tomato called

'd venture, briefly and very amateurishly, into Pippa's territory to see what pests are doing their best to blight my garden. I'm not brilliant at such things, and quake inside when people bear down on me, clutching festering leaves in polythene bags. A very

). For now, the important thing to remember is that frogs, toads, hedgehogs and birds can all help the gardener in the battle against slugs and snails, but if you don't have pests to feed these welcome predators they're not going to take up residence

few weeks, stopping two weeks prior to the show. In the final week we'll just remove the flower heads that are going over.As spring advances, so do the pests. We've had our first outbreak of aphids, and have responded by spraying the plants

given plants by my neighbours, which are planted wherever there's a spare bit of earth.But I do try to stick to the general plan, to ensure the nutrient levels of the soil are maintained evenly across the plot, and pests and diseases do not build up

'll be getting to work in their battle against my pests far sooner than any influx of ladybirds from abroad later in the year!