Foodies and gardeners alike often find coriander to be among the most polarising plants in the patch, eliciting equally passionate responses of both love and hatred. While there is nothing that we can offer to change your taste, gardening haters may need to accept some responsibility. Rather than pointing the finger, it may be time to address our own shortcomings.

Coriander can sometimes feel like a tumultuous relationship that you keep going back to. But have you ever considered that maybe coriander is not the difficult partner we make it out to be, rather it always seems to be dating absolute duds? That’s right, we need to stop trying to change coriander, and rather try to understand it better.

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Snails and slugs are both from the mollusc family that once belonged in an aquatic environment. Although they have evolved into the annoying land-crawling creatures they are today, it gives us some clues as to which conditions they prefer. 

For a snail or slug or snail to move, it needs to produce a slime that it can then drag its disgusting slimy self over. This leaves behind a silky slime trail, which many moons ago we'd wake up to in our sharehouse living room. Other than sharehouse rugs, snail and slugs prefer the young, tender growth of your seedlings and are most active when conditions are damp. These night feeders tend to be gregarious and return to the same resting place. While snail shave a protective shell, meaning they feel a little safer out in the open (as opposed to under my lowering boot), slugs don't enjoy the same protection and will burrow into the soil for shelter.

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Herbs are hands down the most utilised and important plants of the garden. To leave them out of the patch is like leaving your 8-year-old son, Kevin, home alone while you go on holiday to France. Sure, the consequences are outrageous and hilarious, but who forgets their son and catches a plane to Paris? Probably the same kind of people who don’t plant herbs in the veggie patch.

Nothing breaks our heart more than having to buy herbs from the supermarket. They are easy to grow and most will produce year-round, so if you have the right sort of foresight there should be a little of everything in your patch at all times (the exception being basil). They will also provide a range of scents and colours when in flower to attract beneficial insects into the patch. If you build a mini ecosystem of plants and good insects, the veggie patch will always operate with greater ease and efficiency.

Rather than head to the supermarket with heads bowed – shaming ourselves into buying fresh herbs for the meal that wouldn’t be the same without them – our first course of action is always to scout the neighbourhood. We know there are entire nature strips full of rosemary less than a block away from my house. Parsley protrudes from our next-door neighbour’s fence, as does sage. Of
course you should always ask your neighbour first, but as you do remind them that growth of the plant is stimulated by a small haircut. What you take will quickly regenerate on the plant, so everyone is a winner.

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The typical approach to insects in the garden - that is, mass destruction - is perhaps borne out of our ignorance. Most of us know nothing about the creatures that roam our veggie patches - what are they? how long do they live? what do they want?! why don’t they leave us alone!?? - and so we are often scared of them all. For as long as we’ve been gardening there has always been an unnerving feeling in the air when discussing the topic. So much so, that most see all insects - of course, the bee being the one exception - as our enemy.

But every animal and insect has its place in a finely balanced eco-system. For example, what would our oceans (and the majestic whale) be without algae to provide oxygen and food? Yes, did you know that algae’s are primarily good for the ocean? It’s only a few bad types, that are exacerbated by us humans and our ways, that project an overarching impression that they are not good for us. Taking it back to our gardens, and the veggie patches, bugs are primarily
good too. They are only misunderstood.

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Both aphids and whiteflies suck, literally. There are close relatives in the world of sucking pests, the aphid belonging to the superfamily of pests known as the Aphidoidea and whitefly to the Hemiptera, but both love to feed on the sap of your edible plants. Favoured plants are usually members of the gourd and nightshade families; meaning your pumpkins, cucumbers, squash and zucchini, along with tomatoes, eggplant, capsicum and chilli respectively. 

Aphids 

Optimal conditions: wet and warm (also known as spring)

Signature: clusters of small black or green dots on the stems of your plants and underside of the leaves. Turns the leaves yellow by sucking out their sap and then leaves behind a sugary residue - called honeydew - that ants feed on. An abundance of ants, that then protect the aphids, is a tell tale sign of a problem.

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