A Couple of Ways Herbs Control Pests in Your Garden
Pests.
Yuck, right?
Herbs can help you keep your veggie crops safe and make your garden more beautiful and delicious.
1. Confuse Many pests smell their target. Herbs have wonderful strong scents, especially when the sun warms their leaves. By inter-planting herbs with your garden crops, you hide the scent that the pests hone in on.
My favorite combination is basil and tomatoes. Wrapping a sun-warm tomato in leaf of just picked basil is one of the finest summer treats.
Cabbage crops and nasturtiums are great friends. The cabbage butterfly lays eggs on the leaves and the tiny caterpillar does such damage to all cabbage family crops. Strong smelling herbs are wonderful to hide the cabbage smell but one of the best is the nasturtium. The leaves and flowers are peppery and edible in salads. Pickle the buds and use them as caper substitutes.
2. Trap crop Some things just taste better to the pests. Radishes are one of those things. Arugula is another. Flea beetles will be attracted to these trap crops and leave your other things alone. I eat maybe two radishes in the spring, cut paper-thin on a slice of French bread slathered with butter and heaped with salt. I feel very sophisticated until a few minutes pass and they start repeating on me. So why do I plant a ton of radishes? Because they are epic trap crops.
Here are my sugar peas and arugula loving each other. This arugula is now pretty much wild in my garden. This is it's 4th season of re-seeding and growing. I just let it go wild as it actually has both strong scent to confuse pests and draws flea beetles to fill up and go away.
Another terrific trap crop idea is to plant extra tomatillos around your potatoes. Often the Colorado potato beetle will choose to attach the tomatillo with great gusto. Go out to the garden with bucket of soapy water and shake these horrible bugs off the branches of tomatillos to their watery death. It's too early for pictures but maybe I'll do a later edition in the summer.
Yuck, right?
Herbs can help you keep your veggie crops safe and make your garden more beautiful and delicious.
1. Confuse Many pests smell their target. Herbs have wonderful strong scents, especially when the sun warms their leaves. By inter-planting herbs with your garden crops, you hide the scent that the pests hone in on.
 |
| Baby basil around a cage of paste tomatoes. Helps keep away the tomato horn worm. |
Cabbage crops and nasturtiums are great friends. The cabbage butterfly lays eggs on the leaves and the tiny caterpillar does such damage to all cabbage family crops. Strong smelling herbs are wonderful to hide the cabbage smell but one of the best is the nasturtium. The leaves and flowers are peppery and edible in salads. Pickle the buds and use them as caper substitutes.
2. Trap crop Some things just taste better to the pests. Radishes are one of those things. Arugula is another. Flea beetles will be attracted to these trap crops and leave your other things alone. I eat maybe two radishes in the spring, cut paper-thin on a slice of French bread slathered with butter and heaped with salt. I feel very sophisticated until a few minutes pass and they start repeating on me. So why do I plant a ton of radishes? Because they are epic trap crops.
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| A closer view of peas and arugula. |
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| Arugula also provides a living pole for the peas to climb. |
Another terrific trap crop idea is to plant extra tomatillos around your potatoes. Often the Colorado potato beetle will choose to attach the tomatillo with great gusto. Go out to the garden with bucket of soapy water and shake these horrible bugs off the branches of tomatillos to their watery death. It's too early for pictures but maybe I'll do a later edition in the summer.
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