Companion Planting and Flowers

This week we planted our second batch of seeds.  These included tomatoes (brandywine, whopper, and supersweet), bell peppers, chile de arbol peppers, jalapenos, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower.  We also started rosemary, parsley, and thyme.  The seeds we started a couple weeks ago are doing well; they are shown in the picture to the right.  The larger seedling in the lower-right corner is cilantro.  Most of the other seedlings are leeks.  Only on celery has sprouted so far (to the right of the cilantro), but it has only been 13 days and the germination time for celery is 7–21 days, so I'm not worried yet!

 While we are waiting for the seedlings to graduate to peat pots and lights (and grow very large), I want to spend a few weeks talking about several general gardening topics.  The first topic I want to cover is companion planting, specifically companion flowers.  We have spent a lot of time researching companion planting.  The reason for this is that most pests can be dealt with without using pesticides, by simply intelligently planning your garden and adding certain plants to target certain species of pests.  Other plants can be used to attract pollinators (like bees) and predators (like ladybugs).

Our primary reference for companion planting is Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte.  This book is in the Amazon app to the right of the blog.  It has great information on which plants to plant together and which plants to keep far apart.  For tomatoes, for instance, it tells you that they should not be planted near any member of the cabbage family or potatoes, that they will protect asparagus from the asparagus beetle, that garlic will protect them from the red spider mite, and that they should only be watered from beneath.  Another important fact regards bush beans.  Bush beans (including butter, green, snap, string, and wax beans) do well with cucumbers, celery, and strawberries, but do not do well with onions.  The book also has sections on herbs, wild plants, soil improvement, poisonous plants, and garden planning.

One new type of companion planting we are doing this year involves flowers.  The are basically four types of companion flowers:  those that attract pollinators, those that attract predators, those that repel pests, and those that attract pests.  I will talk about each of these below.

Sunflowers

Sweet peas

Zinnias

First is the group of flowers that attract pollinators.  Pollinators are primarily honey bees, so these flowers have a lot of nectar and scent.  Most of them also serve well as cut flowers.  These flowers include sunflowers, sweet peas, cosmos, zinnias, and mints.  We are going to plant sunflowers near the corn to attract bees to the cucumbers, squash, and melons.  We will also plant sweet peas and zinnias in pots set in the garden paths.  We were already planting mint, so that will help as well.

Marigolds

Second are the flowers that attract pest predators like ladybugs, which eat aphids.  The herbs parsley, dill, and cilantro, all of which we will grow, do this, as do sunflowers, marigolds, chrysanthemums, calendulas, zinnias, and sunflowers.  We will grow marigolds in pots as well.

Next are the flowers that repel pests.  There are no flowers that repel all pests, but catmint is one of the best at repelling aphids, potato beetles, and squash bugs. We will plant catmint near the potatoes and squash.  Catmint (nepeta mussinii) is in the same genus as catnip (nepeta cataria), but is a different species; all members of the genus nepeta affect cats though. We will plant borage amongst the tomatoes, because they repel tomato hornworms (they also make a good herbal tea!).  Finally, geraniums repel Japanese beetles, which plagued our cucumbers and beans last year, so we will plant these are well.  Sage, which we already plant as an herb, repels cabbage moths and carrot rust flies, so we will place the sage pots near the cabbages.

Catmint

Geranium

Borage

Finally are the flowers that attract pests.  This sounds kind of strange, but if you can lure the pests away from the garden, the combination of these attractors and the repellents is hard to beat!  Four o'clocks bloom in the late afternoon and lure Japanese beetles.  Once they are lured, you can collect them in jars of soapy warm water, which kills them instantly.  Nicotiana attracts several types of insects, and nasturtiums are irresistible to aphids.  We will be planting four o'clocks and nasturtiums in our "flower garden" to lure these pests.

"Broken colors" four o'clocks

"Princess of India" nasturtiums

That's all for this week's topic.  Next week I will talk about composting!