Let your plants be an army, or commune (whichever way you want to swing) in the fight against pests and inorganic chemical gardening: Companion Planting

If there is a way to add diversity and keep pests at bay all the while looking lovely and enhancing resistances or tastiness in my garden without chemicals, I am there! That’s why I attempt to companion plant as often as possible even though not all of the suggestions of companion planting are tried and true scientifically. It is one of those age old, “Hmmm, this seems to work well together!” things that has done well for many gardeners of old and thus, keeping with tradition and having seen such positive results in my gardening past, I companion plant.

In brief, here are reasons that companion planting is a favorable, organic method of gardening and is just cool in general:

-Some plants exude certain chemicals that deter or confuse pests from noshing down of your plants, keeping your main crop healthy or less damaged by pests.

- Certain plants planted in proximity to another plant can affect the flavor of the other plant positively (need to be careful of this, because certain strongly scented/flavored plants can alter the flavor of a plant that you want to keep  in its original flavor).

-Plants that fix nitrogen or other minerals can fertilize another plant near it.

-One plant can be “bait” and act as a trap crop to save your prize crop from ruin.

-More plants, especially those of varying height forces pests to choose between plants, rather than them seeing the single massive skyscraper tomato plant available. Diversity is the antithesis of monocropping, meaning that it can be protect a garden from losing an entire crop because there’s so much to choose from! Nature is flexible and varied, so why shouldn't you be?

-Low growing companion plants may act like a groundcover than protects soil of the bed from drying out and may serve other functions such as fertilization or pest preventative.

-Multiple plants create mini-habitats/microclimates which attract, feed and house beneficial insects to take care of the actual baddies. These microclimates can also be helpful in ways such as shading an easily sun scaldable plant, such as bell peppers beneath a tall okra plant. Or borage plants attracting a brachonid wasp which infect hornworms on the tomato plant by the borage.

At the end of this post are some excellent sites with great companion planting lists. In a moment I will simply note a few of companion plants I use together.

How I companion plant:

-Strawberries with pole beans for fertilization and okra for shading, the beans climb up the okra too, like a Three Sisters effect sort of. Runner beans can be substituted for pole beans. Cucumber trellised up with the lot because they’re companions and fit. Borage planted here and there to enhance flavor and vigor of strawberries.

-Asparagus with tomatoes/peppers/eggplant and basil for flavor enhancement and pest prevention with French or Mexican marigold on the side or surrounding for pest/nematode prevention.

-Tomatoes with bush or pole beans for fertilization and basil and borage for tomato flavor enhancement and pest prevention. Sweet potato vine allowed to ramble to create a green groundcover to keep in soil moisture.

-Nasturtiums (so many types!) along the garden border all the time when possible as a trap crop and for food (until Mid South heat usually kills it) and garlic as a pest deterrent.

-French/Mexican marigold borders for pest/nematode preventative.

-Tiny flower herbs and very fragrant herbs planted all around such as oregano and mint (can be invasive though), to attract and nurse beneficials.


GREAT SITES WITH COMPANION PLANTING TABLES:
http://www.ommas-aarden.net/comp_plant.htm
http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/lib2/complant.htm
http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html
http://www.companionplanting.net/
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/complant.html
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/county/cass/horticulture/vegetables/companion.htm
http://www.seedsofchange.com/enewsletter/issue_55/companion_planting.aspx
http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/companion-planting.html
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-2-10-108,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting
http://www.humeseeds.com/comp1.htm

Thanks for holding.

Hey, this is my last generic scheduled post, post-emo-i-tude (hopefully, as this one is scheduled too)

Working on turning a:

to this:

Just wanting to say, hold on, there's still more posts coming up with some companion planting and no-till gardening goodness so please, be patient for them sometime this week.

Hope all is well for you and your gardens and that harvests are coming in by the bushel!

May you stay on the side of the light and not the blight!

GIVEAWAY (different one): Let the tasty spread, Malabar Spinach!

Malabar spinach was one of the great successes this year, creating the first Great Wall of Spinach in history (I can only presume... if anyone wants to challenge this, please take me up on this, send me a postcard or pic to dispute me, bring it!).

So the Great Wall of Spinach became the Great FLOWERING Wall of Spinach and I figured, once again like the perilla, I will have PLENTY of seed to go around and I will only need enough for my crop next year (if it doesn't come back on its own by possible heavy mulching like the stevia) and for relatives.


So, why not share once again?Once again, the rules are, just post a comment which I will then reply to your email address for your actual address to send you some free malabar spinach seeds that will fit in a regular sized envelope/not cost me more than a stamp to send to you.

This giveaway will be open for a month after this is posted and is free for the continental USA. I'd be happy to send outside the States, but would really really like to have some sort of S&H help there.

These seeds will be HARVESTED, DRIED, and PACKAGED by me.. so all the laborious work is going on all on my end, woohoo, I mean, wait--- HURRAY, really we all win, I get seeds in general, as do you and I also get the pleasure of knowing I am spreading some edible gardening goodness around!

I won't be able to attest as to the results of germination for the seeds, but hey, you're still getting something free just for a comment and ain't this so American? ;)

PS For those not even interested in growing malabar spinach, the fruit of the seed is well known to be a great dye. Purplish-dark mauve, trust me, my fingers have evidence.

Pitcher plants and a side of flies please

I like to make my garden edible to all, for the birds, bees, me, possums, squirrels (damn things), even carnivorous plants :)

I was very lucky to get these beauties from Diane Meucci of Gardens Oy Vey and keep them in a non-draining shallow bowl to thrive. They originally were in a well draining hypertufa bowl I had made, but it was too well draining and the pitcher plants were having none of it, drying out and being sad.


I keep them by the water barrel next to some horsetail I keep confined in a pot in the drain hole of the rain barrel. My theory is that the mosquitoes and flies like to hang there and it's a good spot to keep the pitcher plants happy and well fed.

Well call me Seymour and eat me alive, aren't they pretty? They really get your heart going when they bloom, which I hope is either this or next year because those flowers are just unearthly and beautiful.

FREE GIVEAWAY: ...the perilla is in bloom!

As I had mentioned previously in an earlier post, perilla/beefsteak plant is pretty amazing in its self-seeding-ness and......... its now in bloom.

Pretty, is it not? (If you like adorable self replicating tasty and pretty colored gremlins...)

All this...
....Can be yours!

So... while I know I have said it can be a scary plant a bit, it really is a good groundcover for those bare spots that you just want to have filled in It's tasty, wild basil-y anise-like and can handle nearly any conditions. I never water it, it likes sun and part shade...what more can you love?

So, for the GIVEAWAY:
If you leave a comment and I will reply back to you for your address I will be happy to send you a small homemade packet of the seeds that will fit and only cost me a stamp, HANDPICKED, WINNOWED and PACKAGED by me.

This giveaway will be open for up to a month after this posting and is free for those in the continental USA. If you are outside from here, we can potentially work something out with S&H.

Also I would like to note that while I have no doubt these seeds will germinate wonderfully, I will say that I can't guarantee they ALL will germinate.

ALSO, please check your invasive species lists to make sure that you're not propagating anything you shouldn't in your area

You just need to comment your interest in this seed because, dude, I have PLENTY to go around.

Pardon any odd technical difficulties...

Working on getting the stupid wonky layout of this page figured out... I was just too lazy in the past to fix it appropriately and forgot that everyone else in the world may not be viewing this on the tiny screen of a netbook...

Therefore, by tomorrow, with luck, your viewing pleasure will be enhanced positively.

Lavender Vodka

What can you use for cleaning, your hair and is delicious?

Lavender Vodka!

Yep, I had some Munstead lavender in bloom (Munstead is good for this location with its high heat/humidity) and have yet to use it in my evil plans of making lavender vanilla creme brulee, so I decided to allow the soon fading blooms to soak in a recycled Frank's Hot Sauce bottle with some cheap vodka.

There the alcohol will draw out the flavor/scent and be great for cleaning (as the high alcohol content is a disinfectant), you can get rid of cat pee stains from it (use plain vodka with this one), spray it on clothes to freshen them up (the alcohol smell fades completely away), in your hair to make it smell good and remove product buildup, and make lavender-tinis.

The taste of a lavender martinis (I know, I know, REAL martinis are made from gin, yada yada, and this is especially true for the hibiscus martinis... if you want the recipe you'll have to ask) is pretty floral to the EXTREME, so take caution when using.

Cheers!

Will return to regularly scheduled programming...

... I've been feeling sort of run down and emo as of late and need a bit of a mental break and thus will be taking a short hiatus from life for a while (about a business week).

I will however be having regularly scheduled short posts to fill in the blankness and blankity-blankness of life so please, stay tuned folks.

When I return, there will be thorough goodness on companion planting and no-till gardening! Delicious!

I know that my latest posts have been of the the buggy nature rather than the plant-y one, so I will get back to my roots (pun very much intended)

Allow me to distract you with a plethora of ornamental peppers:
These are a combination of the tri-colore garda and calico ornamental peppers that I so adore. Most of them ripened up to the usually associated pepper red color, so that's a little boring as I wanted to have a bit more variety in my pepper jelly I am going to make from them, but color doesn't change their flavor (aka heat, so I'll live).

I like running the little peppers through my hands... they remind me of tiny gems, rubies, topazes, amethysts and such. Or of brightly colored jelly beans! Wouldn't that be evil to leave in a candy dish?

I am extremely idiotic when it comes to handling hot peppers though. I have a bad habit of rubbing my eyes all the time and as you can guess... yeah, ALWAYS burn my eyes when I handle peppers and I can't bring myself to wear gloves because REAL chili pepper lovers don't use gloves (*MANLY CHEST THUMP* here)!

This recent pepper foray led me to wash my hands 5 various times with dish soap after an initial vodka hand rinse (I read that vodka is good at getting oils off and can be used as a poison ivy treatment too). (I used the vodka to make a killer bloody mary btw).

Even after all that washing and vodka-ing (for Science, I say!) I still was getting some numbing burning in my eye.

CONCLUSION: Chili oil is a stubborn chemical to remove and should be utilized on younger siblings, evil neighborhors, husbands, BUGS & PLANT THIEVES.

Did cotton candy explode on you or is that just your face---? Brachonid Wasps!

So, my double happiness (to get super Chinese on you) happened the same day I caught the tachinid fly accosting the hornworm:

Those weird cotton q-tip end shaped things are actually the larvae cocoons of the brachonid wasps!

YES! More beneficial insects in my garden! The system is not broken here!

Remember how I mentioned tiny flowers were very important in the garden? Well this is another beneficial insect whose adult form relies on those flowers for food while, once again, parasitizing (for moi) all the baddies in my garden.

Unfortunately I don't have any personal pics of the wasp itself but the links at the end of this posting will allow you to view the wasp in its full glory.

This wasp has an ovipositor (think the movie Aliens, sort of) on its rear that is like a long needle which injects its eggs into its hosts. Most of the time the time when the larvae are near the end of their cycle they end up killing the host while pupating inside it or near the host's dead body.

The really cool thing about the wasp and its egg-laying-larvae-living-in-host thing that really gets my ex-microbiologist wanna be self going is that that the wasp actually utilizes VIRUS SYMBIOSIS to suppress its hosts' systems and allow their larvae to develop within!

Brachonid wasps feed on many other pests such as aphids and certain flies and as many aphids live in colonies, when one aphid shows sign of brachonid wasp infection or has been "mummified" by an exiting wasp larva, that usually means the rest of the colony has been infected as well. SCORE!

It is good to note too that these wasps are only 12 mm in length and do not tend to sting people, so as they say in the Hitchhiker's Guide: "DON'T PANIC," when you see a wasp (in general). Unless of course you have an allergy... then, just walk slowly away...

I left my brachonid infected hornworm alone so that the larvae will develop and do their good work on the rest of the nasty green giants.

LINKS OF INTEREST:

Braconidae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://davesgarden.com/guides/terms/go/1565/

http://www.bugladyconsulting.com/Braconid%20%20Wasps.htm

http://www.entomology.umn.edu/cues/Web/270Insecta.Hymenoptera.Braconidae.pdf

http://www.gardengrapevine.com/HornWormBraconidWasp.html

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5916/926

Green Lacewings!

Can you see it?

See it now?

It's a green lacewing egg! One tiny, singular egg, but still reproduction among the lacewings is going on.

I'm not sure if this lacewing egg comes from completely natural means or from an eggs/larvae I ordered months ago from Gardens Alive that I released.  Either way I'm just excited about this egg, though puzzled too because it's the second or third lacewing egg on a tomato fruit, which is not the best place for a lacewing egg to be, for me at least, because if a fruit is ripe, I need to eat it egg or not.

Lacewings are one of the best beneficial insects to have the garden.  As with many of the beneficial insects, the adults dine on flower pollen and nectar as well as aphid honeydew (a sticky-sweet secretion aphids exude).

It is their predaceous, voracious larvae, also known as "aphid lions" that make quick use of soft bodied pests such as mites, aphids,  mealybugs, thrips, beetle larvae, leafhoppers,  and certain caterpillars.  They dispatch their prey using long mandible jaws which hold their food and then inject a paralyzing venom into the prey which they will then suck the fluids from.  Whee, slurpies!

As female lacewings are rather reproductive, with hundreds of eggs laid a season to equate to potentially 2-6 generations during the growing season (depending if you have a mild winter or not)  with larvae overwintering in small crevices in the ground if it gets cold in your location.

Lacewings do particularly well in high humidity, so they are great in greenhouses, if only I had one :( or in southeastern United States, where I am, yea!

Unfortunately the adult lacewings are most active at night, when I am rarely in the garden, but you can identify them (in pics from the following links) and by their on average 18mm long selves with pale green lace-like wings and golden large eyes.

Larvae are reminiscent of ladybug larvae, like little yellow and brown alligators vs the red and black ones of the lady beetles.

Give adult lacewings a safe dry place to stay by cutting off the bottom of a 2 liter plastic bottle, loosely roll a piece of corrugated cardboard inside, but taut enough to stay in the bottle without falling out and cutting off any extraneous that sticks out from cut bottom.  This provides many crevices for adult lacewings to hide in.  Hang the bottle by the small mouth near a covered location like your eaves or a tree/bushes.

LINKS OF INTEREST:
http://mint.ippc.orst.edu/laceid.htm
http://www.insectary.com/lw/lacewing.htm
http://www.thebeneficialinsectco.com/green-lacewing-larvae.htm
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/predators/chrysoperla.html
http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=5040&bhcd2=1251947844