Healthy soil
Healthy growth depends on a healthy soil. Too much fertiliser and your plants will be soft and sappy. The result will be a lovely lunch for the pests and the need for you to spray. Feed your soil with a wholefood diet of garden compost and leafmould rather than using the fast-food artificial fertilisers that are designed to feed only the plant. Feeding the soil rather than the plant will mean stronger growth and better resistance to pests and diseases. Research has already proved this to be true.

Looking after the soil is the cornerstone of organic gardening. Healthy plants depend on it. For organic gardeners there is also another very important tool in preventing pests and diseases, this is choosing varieties that have been bred for their pest and disease resistance. For example, blight resistant potatoes such as 'Remarka' and 'Sarpo', and root aphid resistant lettuces such as 'Milan'.

Crop rotation
Focusing for a moment on your vegetable garden, there is one essential pest and disease control that you must practice - crop rotation. This involves dividing your vegetables into at least four groups that stay together each year but move onto the next part of the rotation every spring. The vegetables are grouped by family as well as similar feeding habits. Apart from being the best way to build soil fertility, it is the most important factor in controlling the build-up of pests and diseases. All organic growers practice crop rotation.

Barriers
Barriers are the best way of reducing pest damage. By covering your vegetables with a fine mesh you will stop them being attacked by flying pests. This works well for carrot rootfly and pea moth. Fine mesh is also an all inclusive way of protecting your cabbages from just about everything including flea beetles, leaf weevils, birds, cabbage white butterflies and white fly.

Other barriers include cabbage collars and bottle cloches. Placing a collar of carpet underlay around the neck of a young cabbage will prevent the cabbage root fly from laying its eggs at the base of the cabbage.

Placing a bottle cloche (a clear plastic bottle with the top and bottom removed) over newly planted vegetables will prevent them being eaten by slugs or anything else that takes a fancy to them.

Small gauge chickenwire is always useful. Placing it over your newly sown peas can stop them being eaten by mice while they are germinating or being scratched up by cats. Wrap it around your flowering bulbs to prevent squirrels from digging them up.

Netting can also be very useful at preventing bird damage to fruit and vegetables. There is also a humming line that can be wound around canes criss-crossed over your vegetables to prevent bird attacks. Netting can also prevent cabbage white butterflies from laying their eggs on your brassicas.