By Mary Lowther
I’ve read glowing accounts of marigolds keeping pests away from vegetables they were planted among. Onions near roses will deter aphids; herbs in the cabbage patch addle insects’ senses; wheat grown around the potato patch attracts wire worms away from the potatoes; chile and garlic juice throw insects off course. It’s been fun experimenting with these deterrents and that’s about all I can say about them.
Fortunately my life hasn’t depended on my garden, so it’s not a disaster when experiments don’t work.
Marigolds for example, especially the “Tagetes” variety, keep aphids away we are told, so I planted some among my vegetables. Sure enough, I didn’t have aphids. Nor were there any the following year when I didn’t plant marigolds in the garden. Or the year after that, so I still plant marigolds but not in the garden where they take up valuable space.
Then I planted nasturtiums which are said to attract hoverflies that eat aphids; not that I had a problem with aphids but one never knows, maybe this will be the year and if it’s a problem with the author, maybe it would potentially be a problem in my garden too. But I guess the hoverflies weren’t out that year because the nasturtiums attracted black aphids that I had never seen in the garden before! I threw them out and never planted them among my vegetables again and the only time I saw another aphid was when I planted lupins among the broccoli. I had to yank out the lupins too; those aphids were big and hungry and crawling all over the lupins, yuk!
I’ve tried dill, cilantro, parsley and other herbs in the cabbage patch but nothing seems to confuse the cabbage moth that lays its destructive caterpillar eggs on cabbages. Only two things I’ve found that eradicate cabbage moth problems and those are the predatory wasps and spun cloth cover like Remay.
What about basil among the tomatoes? These two crops are said to enhance each other, but when I planted them in the same bed, the basil died, so I went back to growing basil among my other herbs. It’s easier to tend to all the herbs in their patch and tomatoes in theirs anyway.
I do have flowers growing along the outside of the vegetable patch to attract bees and other pollinating insects and just because they’re lovely, but I have given up on companion plantings and find that my garden grows quite well without flowers taking up space that could have grown more vegetables.
Please contact mary_lowther@yahoo.ca with questions and suggestions since I need all the help I can get.
