Use of Flowers to Protect a Vegetable Garden
Many people lean toward organic gardening. They hesitate to use dangerous chemical pesticides to control pests in their vegetable gardens. Planting flowers or herbs to repel bad insects and to attract beneficial insects to gardens is known as companion planting. The beneficial insects eat the harmful insects, thus protecting your crop, according to GHorganics.com. Does this Spark an idea?
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Companion Planting
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Queen Anne's lace attracts small insects that will eat leaf-eating caterpillars. If you have ever grown tomatoes, you know these caterpillars can ruin a crop quickly.
A nasturtium is one of the best flowers to attract insects to devour aphids, beetles, flies and squash bugs. These make great companions to pumpkin, beans, cabbage, squash and cucumber plants. The leaves, seeds and flowers of the nasturtium are edible---and they make delightful additions to a salad.
All varieties of daisies attract ladybugs, which is a very beneficial insect that loves to eat aphids and mites. Black-eyed Susan's and asters attract the lacewing insects that eat harmful aphids.
Plant white geraniums approximately 10 to 20 feet from your garden area to attract Japanese beetles. These flowers are poisonous to them, and they die after eating the flower.
Mexican marigolds have a scent that entices insects that like to munch on mosquitoes. These marigolds are also effective in repelling moles. Marigolds are excellent companion plants for asparagus, tomatoes, beans and cabbage.
Lovely, tall sunflowers bring pirate bugs into the garden area; they kill white flies. When sunflowers seed, they attract birds (hummingbirds, in particular) which love to eat white flies.
Horehound is a member of the mint family, and its tiny flowers attract beneficial insects such as braconid and icheumonid wasps and syrid and tachnid flies. The larvae eat harmful garden pests. This flower can thrive under harsh weather conditions; it also stimulates production in tomato and pepper plants.
Zinnias attract bees, which are pollinators; they also attract hummingbirds that devour white flies.
Chrysanthemum coccineum is a beautiful flower and the source for pyrethrum, which is an organic insecticide found in many bug sprays, according to NCSU.edu. This plant also kills harmful root nematodes.
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