Garden Club

In Gardening Club, we grow many plants including mint, tomatoes, potatoes, parsley, peas, and chillies. 

We like to let our plants grow wild, so that they build up natural protection against pests and insects, like they would in the wild. 

One of our plants, the broad beans, have recently been attacked by a sugar-sucking insect called aphids. These aphids will kill our plants very soon if we don’t step in and save them. 

We created white oil to try and kill all of the aphids. White oil is made with a litre of water and a tablespoon of oil. It kills aphids when we spray it onto their faces and it creates an uncomfortable sensation which blocks their breathing pores. Eventually, the aphid population will die out if we continue to use the white oil spray and our plants will survive. When we used the white oil, we had to spray the aphids multiple times because if we sprayed them once, the spray may not always land directly on their face which means that they still survive. 

Over the holidays, our gardening club area was restricted for the bathroom renovation which meant that the aphids had another chance to increase their population. We have continued to make and use the spray in an attempt to stop them from killing our plants. As well as using the spray, we have recently discovered a ladybug on one of our broad beans. Fortunately for us, ladybugs eat aphids! Hopefully the ladybug and the use of our spray will save our garden from disaster.

Alysha N and Elodie H (Stage 3)