Trap Crops: The Best Plants to Grow to Keep Pests Away from Your Vegetables - Gardenista
Trap Crops: The Best Plants to Grow to Keep Pests Away from Your Vegetables - Gardenista
Wouldn’t be great if you didn’t have to use pesticides to keep bugs from eating your plants? How awesome would it be if you could just plant plants to take care of some of the most common pests?
Nasturtiums
Alaska variegated Nasturtiums mound and mingle in the raised bed next to strawberries and bold artichokes at the <a href="https://www.gardenista.com/posts/garden-visit-edible-garden-oracle-park/">Edible Garden at Oracle Park in San Francisco</a>. Aphids prefer nasturtiums and will choose them over your tomatoes.
Photograph by Kier Holmes.
Marigolds mixed into the vegetable beds of Gardenista’s <a href="https://www.gardenista.com/posts/best-edible-garden-2017-an-iowa-homestead-by-under-a-tin-roof/">Best Edible Garden 2017</a> winner. A favorite and well-known trap crop, marigolds attract thrips.
Marigolds
Photograph by Kayla Haupt.
Photograph by Louise Joly via Flickr.
Blue Hubbard Squash
Blue Hubbard squash keeps the squash vine borer away from your zucchini. By planting a blue hubbard two weeks before you plant your zucchini, the squash vine borer moth will lay its eggs on the blue hubbard and not the zucchini.
Pot marigolds growing tall in Sarah Raven’s vegetable garden. Additionally, they attract hoverflies and ladybugs that eat the bad bugs.
Calendula (Pot Marigold)
Photograph by Jonathan Buckley, from Ask The Expert: Sarah Raven’s 10 Tips for a Kitchen Garden.
Artichokes and sunflowers mingle in the sidewalk garden created by the Gangsta Gardener (aka Ron Finley).
Sunflowers
Photograph by Stacey Lindsay, from City Sidewalks: A Garden Visit with Ron Finley in South Los Angeles,.
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