jacey | Bugs in the Garden

ritaxis - on her blog - asked if anyone else had noticed new biting bugs and whether it was a product of climate change... well...

We've never had mosquitos in my part of England before - I mean - we're a thousand feet up on the edge of the Pennines and the only English mozzies I've ever encountered before have been in the lowlying marshy Fens (East Anglia), some 200 miles away, but the last few years has brought biting insects up to us. Mozzies, I think, because a couple of years ago a Canadian friend spotted mosquito larva in the standing water in a wheelbarrow (which we got rid of very quickly), but maybe other bugs as well.

This summer, my lush and productive vegetable patch is infested. Every time I go up there to weed or harvest I come back with a new crop of horrible itchy bites. (I react badly to mozzy-bites, but I've never reacted particularly badly to gnats.) The last couple of times I've been up the garden I've put on a thick (padded), nearly knee-length, winter coat and zipped it all the way up to the neck... so don't ask me how (yesterday) I managed to get a red, itchy bite on my belly. Those blasted bugs just ain't playing fair.

Anyone got any ideas about how to de-infest a small veg patch without rendering the veg poisonous?

Just out of interest - since several neighbours' cats use our garden as their playground (and, ugh!, toilet) - could there be cat fleas infesting the area they sunbathe in? Is that possible? I've managed to stop them shitting in the veg, but they tend to sleep in the sheltered longish grass on the paths between the raised beds.

Help. Ideas welcome.