I tried hanging yellow paper in my garden and it banished pests instantly

For months, every time I've stepped into my greenhouse I've been greeted by clouds of them. Tiny white flies, barely a millimetre big, forming a plague of pestilence across my strawberry and tomato plants.

Without sounding painfully hipster, I'm an organic gardener, so I refuse to use bug sprays for fear of killing bees by accident, and I avoid chemicals, fertilisers and anything that potentially harms the environment as much as I can.

Unfortunately, white flies have preyed on this mercy, and have got completely out of control in my greenhouse, sapping energy from my strawberry plants in particular and curbing their crop - until now.

I tried all sorts of solutions to this problem, but yellow sticky paper is the first one I've found that actually worked.

Last year, I thought I had a breakthrough by using a soap solution on the plants. This works by coating your plants in a slippery soap that stops flies being able to land, and if it hits them, it also kills them on contact. It seemed to work, but really all it did was move them around, and once it dried out, they just came back.

As a last resort, I even tried bug spray, despite my reservations. On a colder, wetter day when bees weren't likely to be around, I tried a Bug Clear aphid killer specifically designed to target aphids, white fly and green fly. Doesn't work. These things are like the Terminator of the insect world - even bug spray just bounced off them.

Finally, though, I found these yellow sticky paper traps in my local garden centre, and they worked a treat.

All you do is peel off the paper and hang them up in your greenhouse. They are apparently the exact yellow hue that attracts aphids, luring them in, and then they get stuck.

One product description on Amazon says: "With their broad spectrum of action, they effectively target a variety of pests, including white flies, fungus gnats, aphids in their winged stage, and thrips, helping to reduce infestations and protect plants.

"The yellow colour is designed to attract plant pests, ensuring the traps work efficiently. The traps are coated with odourless glue, which attracts and traps pests without any unpleasant smell.

"These traps are insecticide-free, using a non-toxic, odourless glue that securely holds pests without dripping off, even at higher temperatures. The adhesiveness of the glue is also unaffected by water, making these traps reliable and durable. They are suitable for organic farming, offering a pest control solution."

Within a couple of days, I had hundreds of the little white flies trapped. I don't feel great about it, but needs must at this point.

One downside is that I did accidentally trap a couple of spiders. That is counterproductive because I need the spiders to naturally mop up pests like woodlice, aphids and other plant sapping pests, so be careful to hang these in the air in a way spiders can't crawl over them.

I'd also strongly urge against using these in the summer, when windows are open and bees and wasps can wander in, because they will trap key pollinators and do more harm than good. And for the same reason, I'd only use them in a greenhouse, not in the open garden.

In fact, in 2014, a heartbreaking story in the US reported how a fly trap had caught and killed several endangered bats which had got themselves stuck and were unable to free themselves.

But for this very specific use case, used in a controlled way inside the greenhouse, they've been a godsend.