Garden pests? Cucumber them.

Yes, cucumber. We’re talking chopped cucumber here, rather than a whole one wielded, lightsabre style, against the creepy-crawlie armies.

So you have a plant covered in holes? Salad vegetable to the rescue! Here’s the deal.

1. Chop a chunk of cucumber into little pieces.

2. Spread the cucumber beneath the leaves of the affected plant.

3. Wait a few days. Rejoice.

Frugal Grandma passed this on a few weeks ago; she credits it with the rehabilitation of her primroses and polyanthus, which were being eaten away by “beasties unseen”. I was about to ditch a half of cucumber in the composter – I hate food waste; sadly the fridge, for reasons best known to itself, decided to freeze (and spoil) half the the contents of the salad drawer – when I remembered this tip and decided to test it out. And… yup! Not sure which bugs it repels, but even in a saggily defrosted state, the cucumber certainly seems to work.

Apparently cucumber peel is also supposed to repel ants, but I’m not sure how that is supposed to work. I get all moody when ants try and come in the house, but I’m not about to create an unbroken force field around the edges of the kitchen floor. I’ll stick to sweet-smelling basil plants.

Image credit: viZZZual.com.