I'm pretty excited about my "secret pest weapon" this year! 🤫🌿

Published: Sun, 03/20/22

Hiya Rural Sprout Readers,

Hoo-boy, I don’t know about you, but after writing a few of this week’s articles and reading my fellow writers’ pieces, I am getting antsy to play in the dirt.

Here in Pennsylvania, we’re still weeks away from planting most things outside. So, I’ve had to content myself with playing in the dirt inside. This week that meant potting up a few seedlings that have outgrown the starter cells. Now they’re all lined up on the ledge of the giant window in the living room.

I’m always amazed at how quickly they go from a tiny seed into a recognizable plant. Hey, you’re starting to look like a watermelon. And those are definitely tomato leaves. Aren’t you just the cutest little lettuce leaf?

Ask my sweetie, and he’ll tell you I talk sweeter to the plants than I do to him. He might be right.

He and I also spent some time strategizing too. We sat down and talked about some of the pest problems we had last year. Holy cow (or as my dad says, ‘heavenly beef’), the cabbage loopers had a field day in our Brussels sprouts.

This year we plan to cover our cole crops in row covers to hide them from those hungry, hungry caterpillars.

But the plan I’m most excited about this year is all the herbs I plan on planting in the garden.

In garden’s past, I kept my herbs close to the backdoor or mixed them in with the flower beds. But this year, all of our herbs will go right in among the veggies. There are plenty of herbs that make excellent companion plants. And some of the stronger scented herbs help deter pests by covering the scent of your veggies, like planting chamomile among the cabbages.

The main reason I’m keen to intermix my herbs among my veggies, though, is because I want bugs. Yup, that’s right, bugs, lots of them. I’ve noticed over the years that I can plant as many flowers as I want; nothing seems to draw in pollinators and beneficial insects the same way that flowering herbs do.

Dill, chamomile, anise, lavender, and more; once they get going, the beneficial insects crawl all over them.

And that’s just what I want. Organic gardening methods are great, but I like lazy, hands-free gardening even more. So, I figure the more hungry predatory insects I can attract to my garden, the less I have to intervein to save my veggies from pests. Not to mention I won’t have to worry about any of my plants having pollination issues. (I’m looking at you, ground cherries.)

I’m excited to have dill just crawling with ladybugs and hoverflies and borage that positively hums with native bees.

This year I plan to let the bugs sort it out amongst themselves.

I’m just providing the plants the “good” ones like to call home.

How about you, dear reader? Do you have any new strategies you’ll be trying out this year? Are you growing anything you’ve never grown before? I always love hearing from our readers.