For instance the German information is that you can drive away root knot eelworm from tomatoes by planting African Marigold near them. That is a noxious weed here in Perth, Western Australia, and we have a different kind of eelworm that is attracted to the marigold.

I plant a bed of mustard seed, and when the plants are about six inches high I put in my tomatoes surrounded by the mustard plants. The eelworms are driven away towards other crops and weeds, but I don’t have any other plants nearby that are affected.

Now for beneficial insects. Let weeds grow so that pests can thrive among the weeds. Pests mostly hate our crops, and prefer weeds and sick plants, so they won’t do much harm if they are given the choice of eating weeds.

However there is a more important reason for keeping the pests. Beneficial insects can’t survive without something to eat! And they take longer to multiply than pests do. So if you keep a background population of pests, your beneficial insects will thrive, and if the neighbours are invaded by an explosion of pests, your population of predators will be delighted to greet any that spill over to your garden!

As Jackie says “It’s easier to have your garden looking like a jungle, and jungles are more productive than deserts.”