Flower Companions: The 411

There are so many elements to gardening that many of them get overlooked in the details of climate and pests and nutrition and plant selection.  One of the oft overlooked elements to gardening is the use of flowers in the food garden.  Whether your food garden consists solely of a rhubarb plant, or two blueberry bushes, or is an entire backyard teeming with vegetables and fruits from Artichoke to Zucchini; adding flowers to it will be worth your while.

Cosmos in bloom

The benefits of flowers in the garden:

-As food! 
-They are pretty
-Attract and provide food/homes for beneficials
-Repel pests, or trap crops
-Reduce weeding
-Reduce erosion
-Cut flowers
-Smell wonderful
-They are pretty!

The only reasons not to plant flowers are the costs; space constraints; or that you hate pretty things. ;)

Bee balm or Monarda Didyma or wild bergamot attracts pollinators and makes a tasty tea as well.

So what are some good flower options for your garden?  Nearly any flower will do the job of attracting bees, but if you are looking for flowers that really pack a punch as far as benefiting the garden goes, I have listed a few common flowers below.

Marigold

Marigold:  Marigolds are one of the most commonly thought-of companion flowers.  They are said to deter some common insect pests, including nematodes; marigolds are often companion planted with nightshade plants (i.e. tomato, potato, pepper, and eggplant).  Some species are deer-, rabbit-, and rodent-resistant.  The flower petals African marigold (Tagetes erecta) can be used as a yellow food coloring.  Marigolds are a food plant for butterflies and certain Lepidoptera caterpillars. 
On the down side, marigolds do NOT smell particularly pleasant, and their roots emit antibacterial thiophenes so should never be planted near legume crops.

Potted nasturtium (center)

Nasturtium:  Nasturtiums are my favorite garden flower.  They grow as beautiful flowing carpets of green with bright yellow, orange, and red flowers.  They actually prefer to grow in poor soil; rich soil will give them abundant foliage but reduce flower production.  Nasturtiums make a great ground cover to keep down weeds in areas you are not ready to plant, or around bulbs that won't come up for a while.  They don't require much nutrition, have small root systems, self-sow year after year, and are very inexpensive seeds.  Most importantly, the leaves and flowers are edible (they have a mild peppery taste); and they repel a great many cucurbit pests, like squash bugs, cucumber beetles, and several caterpillars. They have similar benefits for brassica plants, especially broccoli and cauliflower. They serve as a trap crop against black fly aphids. They also attract beneficial predatory insects. 

Red Yarrow

Yarrow:  Yarrow flowers in a flat cluster of tiny white, yellow, or pink blossoms.  Yarrow has been used as a vegetable in the past, the younger leaves can be cooked similar to spinach or added to soups.  It has a sweet, slightly bitter flavor.  It has also been used medicinally as a tonic, and to treat wounds.  Pasture grasses traditionally contained a small proportion of yarrow, because it's leaves were particularly high in certain minerals, thus preventing certain mineral deficiencies in cattle.  It repels bad insects and attracts predatory wasps, ladybugs, and hoverflies.  It improves soil quality and its leaves are considered to be good fertilizer and a beneficial additive to compost.  It is said to improve the health of plants nearby, and starlings use it to line their nests (inhibiting the growth of parasites).  Common Yarrow can be invasive.  Wikipedia has some great information on the extensive history and uses for yarrow.

Sunflower:  Both a beautiful annual flower, and an edible; the sunflower's seeds and oil are eaten, while the leaves can be fed to livestock, and the stems can be used in papermaking.  The seed is often used in bird seed blends.  Sunflower is also used in phytoremediation to extract toxic ingredients from soil, such as lead, arsenic and uranium.  Sunflowers are allelopathic, meaning they inhibit other plant growth.  This can be a good thing!  Plant sunflowers in a sunny area that has major weed problems, or around the outskirts of your garden beds to protect from encroaching weeds.  Don't plant them inside the beds though, the roots exude a substance that will inhibit your plants' growth.  I am seriously considering growing them in my blackberry zone in hopes that they will kill off the remaining blackberries.

Coneflower (Echinacea):  Echinacea produces large, often purple, daisy-like flowers.  Medicinally it is used primarily as an immune booster, but also for several other purposes.  It also attracts beneficial insects to the garden.

Fuchsia:  In my area fuchsia are commonly grown as trailing container plants, and annuals.  Fuchsia are actually perennial plants, though not especially hardy.  Besides being absolutely gorgeous, fuchsia are major attractors of butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds; they smell great, look better, and if you are going to plant them anyway you may as well do it near your vegetables.

Catmint:  Nepeta sp. include common catnip as well as several other catmints.  I'm sure most people know the purpose of planting catnip as far as cats go.  Catmints also produce very pretty flowers, and are used medicinally for humans.  It contains a chemical that is a strong repellant to mosquitoes, cockroaches, termites, and flies.  Planting it away from your vegetables can keep your cats out of the area, while planting it within the garden can repel certain insects.  While it is a perennial, if your cats are like mine you may need to buy multiple plants each season because they roll on it so often the whole plant dies.

Hollyhock (Alcea sp.)/Mallow (Althaea sp.):  Tall or short, gorgeous, biennial or short-lived perennials.  A beautiful cut flower and attractor of many beneficial species.  Hollyhocks will often self-sow and are very drought-resistant, they are a great way to brighten up a hot, dry corner of your garden.  Ancient peoples used the Althaea species in both medicines and cooking.  They are also considered one of the mainstays of a traditional cottage garden.

Morning Glory:  Not to be confused with Field Bindweed, a perennial species of Morning Glory that is a nasty weed!  Delicate flowers open in the morning and close in the evening, giving the morning glory its name.  It is a slender vining annual, that will quickly spiral its way up a trellis to offer shade to plants, animals or people below.  Morning Glory will happily cover up a chain link fence with a view of your neighbor's backyard and replace it with a view of green leaves and blue, pink, or white flowers.  The trumpet-like cones of the flowers are particularly attractive to hummingbirds and butterflies.

Rose:  Wondrously scented, beautifully flowered.  The hips and petals are edible; they have been used in cooking, perfumery, winemaking, as floral arrangements, and are a symbol of love and beauty.  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... and would, obviously, attract plenty of pollinators.  But roses have so many pests and diseases, right?  Yes, and no.  Hybrid tea roses are very needy little things that do require much care (and are very commonly found), they have been developed over many years for the showiest blossoms, leaving the plants themselves weak and of poor quality.  The old garden roses, or heritage or historic roses, are far more independent.  They tend to have highly disease-resistant foliage.  Albas, Gallicas, Damasks, Centifolia, Moss, Portland, and China roses are all fairly safe older varieties of rose.  Also the Tea, Bourbon, Hybrid Rugosa, Noisette, Hybrid Musk, and Hybrid Perpetual.  Modern roses are more demanding and include the Hybrid Tea, Pernetianas or Hybrid Foetidas, Polyantha, Floribunda, etc.  Before purchasing a rose to include in your garden take time to do your homework, they are well worth the effort to plant, but if you buy based solely on the picture you may find they are too much work and too sickly to work for you.  (I did this once and was sorely disappointed by the sad sticks with even sadder single blossoms on top, I have since learned my lesson.)

Violet/Pansy/Johnny-Jump-Up/Heartsease:  Viola tricolor actually has over 200 colloquial names.  The wild variety has been cultivated into the many different sizes and colors of pansy we see in nurseries today.  The pansy in its wild form has been used for centuries as medicine, as a plant dye, and the flowers are edible.  They are hardy plants and will survive a short freeze even while blooming.  Pansies are actually biennials, but are often sold the second year and treated as annuals.  They may reseed themselves, but are susceptible to several diseases and a few pests.  They certainly do bring a bright spark of color to the garden early on though, and I can't imagine a Spring without them popping up all over.  The bonus is that pansies are not only pretty, but incredibly cheap!  They do suffer from aphids, but in my mind that makes them a great trap crop. ;)


So, I know I didn't cover all of the great flowers available and all of the great advantages they offer in the veggie garden, but I did cover most of my favorites!  If you have a favorite garden flower that you just couldn't live without, leave me a comment and tell me why it's so great.  (I probably should have included something about Cosmos and Bee Balm, ... but I'm tired!)

Harvest Monday: 5/21/12

I actually harvested this on Sunday, but wanted to take part in Harvest Monday for once.  This week's major harvest was kale, Swiss chard, and onions.  The kale in the whiskey barrel has been struggling and just not keeping up with the kale in the beds, since I didn't amend the soil in the barrels at all it was understandable.  So I did the merciful thing and just pulled it out.  Which actually worked out well since it was raining and I felt like making some soup for dinner.  Zuppa Toscana was the soup of the day; I did fancy it up a bit with the two Walla Walla onions I have been trying to get a bulb from for the past three years, a few good sized chard leaves, the kale, and some beautiful oyster mushrooms and new potatoes from the farmer's market.  Served with a hearty loaf of sourdough, also from the farmer's market, it made the perfect treat on a wet Spring day.

Sunday's harvest, onions, kale, and chard.

I also took a little time to thin down the celery, when I transplanted them they were packed into their containers pretty tightly.  Now that it's obvious which plants are going to do well I yanked out the littler ones.  After rinsing them well I tossed them into my stock bag in the freezer.

Celery thinnings.

 A whole different kind of harvest was going on yesterday as well.  I spotted a ladybug flying past, tracked him to the shed, picked him up and set him on my aphid-plagued mini rose.  I actually spent more than a few minutes watching him harvest aphids like a kid gobbles candy on Halloween.  An hour later he was gone, but I'm hoping he decided it was worth his while to stay in the vicinity.

Phone camera does not do justice to this little guy.

 **Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, hosted by Daphne's Dandelions, stop by to see who else has posted this week, or add your garden harvest to the list.  Have a great Monday everyone!

A Bit About Bugs

While doing some weeding of the garden beds in preparation for my first spring plantings I came across some bugs (well grubs) of an unknown type.  By the way, this is a great time to pull up any dandelions, dock and other taproot weeds since the soil is still very soft and moist; it's more likely you will get the entire root out rather than have it break off and re-sprout.  The grubs I found were gray or dirty white with dark heads, I also found a green grub or caterpillar that was hanging around in the weeds.  I have no idea what they are, after some internet investigations the best answer I could find was cutworms.  Since I'm not certain of this I tossed them over the fence into the empty lot.  If they are harmful at least they are out of the garden, if not, I wish them the best in their new home.

I am considering picking up some beneficial nematodes to help manage soil dwelling pests.  One reason for this is that I spotted two cucumber beetles at the end of last summer, bright beautiful little green ladybug-like beetles with 12 black spots.  While they are very pretty, these beetles are a real problem in the garden.  They eat just about any vegetable they can get to, then lay eggs in the soil, when larva hatch they too will feast on vegetables and they spread bacterial wilt and squash mosaic virus.

Spotted cucumber beetle

Cucumber beetles also have a striped species that looks similar but the spots are instead stripes that run from the head to the rear.  These guys are a real danger to a garden.  Unfortunately they are also a challenge to be rid of.  Parasitic wasps can be helpful, if you don't know how to get these, try planting flowers that will attract them to the garden.  Tiny nectar-filled flowers such as thyme, savory, dill, cilantro, parsley, yarrow, candytuft, verbena, sweet allysum and goldenrod.  If you spot caterpillars or other pest bugs with tiny white sacs attached to them leave them alone!  The sacs are the cocoons of parasitic wasps and the pests will die when they emerge, spawning a new generation of pest killers.  Another cucumber beetle predator is the soldier bug, "leather"-backed firefly-like bugs that can eat up to 100 bugs a day.  Soldier beetles are attracted to pollen and nectar filled flowers and particularly like hydrangea, goldenrod and milkweed.  Tachinid flies are also effective at managing beetle populations, and are another type of parasitoid.  Tachinids are not as preferential as other biological controls and will just as likely parasitize butterfly caterpillars.  Having a large garden variety will help to attract these pest managers.

Beneficial nematodes are microscopic roundworms that live in soil and prey on soil dwelling insects.  They are effective controls of fleas, ants, termites, roaches, flies, grubs; yet they are harmless to humans, pets, and our soil-dwelling friends the earthworms.  You can try to attract nematodes to the garden by adding plenty of compost and having rich organic soil, but this is a grab bag; you could just as easily attract pest nematodes.  It may be wiser to purchase a small package of beneficial nematodes to spread through your garden instead.

Since I live in a mobile home park that was built over an orchard in the 60s, I suspect this area was heavily treated with pesticides in the past and the likelihood of it supporting its own nematode population is fairly slim.  So I will most likely purchase them from a supplier and sow them in and around my garden and yard.  Ants are a major issue in our area, and I imagine if we had a natural nematode population that would not be the case. 

I also plan to sow a package of "Beneficial Bug Mix" flowers in the empty lot next door.  My garden lacks space to add a lot of these plants but I can at least use them to attract beneficials to the vicinity of the garden itself. 

If you plan to attract beneficials to your garden to help with pest management, you should keep a few things in mind:

-Don't spray! Insecticides will kill your beneficials, birds that eat pests, and the pests.  Let the birds and bugs do their jobs and handle the pests for you.

-Identify before you destroy.  It does you no good to attract ladybugs to your garden and then kill their nymphs because you thought they were pests.  Take time to identify bugs, if you can't then move them out of the garden and hope for the best.

-Provide what they need.  Food and shelter in the form of flowering plants, and water.  Your bugs need to drink too.

-Putting out a suet block or feeder of quality untreated bird seed will attract a variety of birds to your garden, many of which also eat pests.  You may find you have a lot of millet to pull up later in the year though.  You can also grow sunflowers and save the seed each year to offer the birds.

The garden is an environment all its own, keeping a balance between flowers and food, pests and beneficials will allow it to transform into its own natural environment that maintains its own balance rather than needing constant interventions. 

Ask and Thou Shalt Receive

Please feel free to make any suggestions on topics to cover in the comments (which I believe I have finally gotten fixed).  I do plan to cover as much as possible in culture, recipes, and general gardening, but if readers have suggestions of what they'd like to see I'd be happy to work on those first.  Also, any questions regarding particular topics will be responded to as fast as possible, I would love to have reader input and am happy to help with any questions or concerns.  Even if that means referring you to another website for guidance.

Make a Note

Well, the beautiful weather has gone back to a moist gray chill.  I suppose I will be back in the house for another week or two.  That's okay though, since I wanted to bring up the topic of notes.

Taking notes on your garden seems like a waste of time, but in reality it is rather hard to remember the date and conditions of planting a specific seed for a year or more.  As your garden gains more plant varieties and you start to push the limits of what you know, it's important to write these things down so that next year as you select tomato seeds you can refer back and remember that Brandywines were good producers, but Legend struggled in the bed it was in.  You can make a list of what seed you have at the end of summer, so your new order in Spring doesn't accidentally double up.  You can look back at some misconceptions you had and remind yourself not to do those things again.

I tend to get so excited about gardening by springtime that I put plants into the ground too early, or start them in the house too early and have sad spindly plants by the time the weather has warmed enough for them to go outside.  I have to make a note to remind myself that curcubits don't actually like the weather in Oregon in May, they get too cold and wet and end up with mildew issues.  If I use this information next year I'm more likely to hold off until June.  I also keep notes on what seeds were planted inside, outside, and at different times; what day they were ready for harvest; what sprouted well and what didn't; and what the weather was like.

Taking notes is like slowly building up a Farmer's Almanac that is based on your specific location, crops, and experiences.  You may plant rhubarb this year, have it die, then 6 or 7 years down the road think, "Oh, I should plant some rhubarb, I like rhubarb!" but not remember the circumstances that led to its death the last time and end up having the same thing happen again.

Note taking doesn't have to be really intensive, if you're a journaler by nature keep a little leather bound journal next to your garden gloves, or keep a cheap spiral bound notebook if you prefer.  If you're a blogger, type it all out in a blog.  I am lucky to have an iPhone that I keep on me nearly always, I use the Notes app to type in notes on what day it is, what the weather has been like, what seeds/plants are growing and how they fare, and this year I will add to that what sort of harvest I see from each.  I almost prefer to do a voice-to-text note taking; I am not a skilled typist and even less so on the iPhone keyboard, it's tedious to take notes that way but it's always at hand and is durable.  Plus I back my notes up with Dropbox so if my phone is lost or damaged I will have a backup copy safe and sound.

Sample of notes in the Notes app.

Note Dos and Don'ts:

-Do date your entries!
-Don't write a book, this is just some notes not a novel.
-Do list plant varieties as well as types, and anything special about them.  Indigo Rose (determinate, blue, slicer, hybrid) tomato produced 3lbs. by July 8th.  Oregon Spring (determinate, slicer, hybrid) produced 5lbs by July 8th, first tomato of the year ready on June 12th!
-Don't keep notebook in your bookshelf in the office or library.  Keep it close to hand to ensure you will keep it up to date.
-Do keep up with note taking throughout the year.  How much harvest and how long your preserved harvest lasts will be helpful in deciding how much to plant next time.  Jan. 31st 2012, still have 14 jars strawberry jam, and 20 jars freezer jam; ran out of frozen strawberries.  40 jams is too many, freeze more whole berries next time. 
-Don't forget to keep track of trials on new things! April 2nd, 2012 laid pennies around two cabbages to test for slug repellent, check back in two weeks.  April 16th, 2012 cabbages surrounded in pennies show less slug damage than others, will continue with penny use.

Deadheading Doesn't Mean Following Jerry Garcia Around

So say you bought a cute little pansy plant, it's brimming with blossoms, looking healthy and beautiful.  You bring it home from the nursery and gently plant it into a nice roomy pot hoping to have a large pansy plant pouring blooms over the sides of the pot in no time.

You water it daily, you add a little fertilizer when the blooms start to fade, and wait patiently for new blooms to follow in their wake.  Nothing happens.  The plant is healthy, it continues to grow, but there are very few new flowers coming and it's starting to look like a foliage plant instead of a flowering plant. 

Deadheading is the process of removing the dying blooms to encourage new flower growth.  Most gardeners already know this, and practice deadheading regularly.  More important than simply understanding that you need to deadhead your flowers is knowing why you need to, what happens if you don't, and what that translates to in other parts of the garden.

Plants are working with a limited amount of nutrients, sunlight, and water with which to grow.  Annuals have to do all of their growth, flowering, and seeding in one year.  So think about it this way, if you put a pansy seed in the ground the first thing it does is grow roots, stems and leaves; this is like a baby learning to eat before learning to walk or talk, the stems support the leaves which in turn reach to the nearest light source to feed the plant while the roots dig deep to support the growth and pull in nutrients from the soil.  So your little plant has learned to feed itself, next it will try to reproduce (luckily babies don't get a jump start on this one). Most plants reproduce by exchanging pollen between flowers, so the pretty pansy flowers you select are actually the plants sexual organs.  What lovely ovaries you have, little pansy!  Your plant develops these sexual organs in an attempt to achieve pollination (or fertilization), once a flower has been pollinated the petals will die off as they are no longer necessary to attract bees and other pollinators, and the plant must redirect it's limited energies to growing seed from the ovaries at the base of the flower.  Grow, fertilize, reproduce.  This is the basic life cycle of a plant. 

Where does the benefit of deadheading come in?  Your plant grows, puts out flowers to reproduce, then... you pluck the flowers and soon to develop seeds with them.  You have stopped the cycle, so the plant responds by trying again: reproduce! You pluck again before seed development. The flowers just keep coming as the plant struggles to meet the deadline of fall frost to have fully developed seed to grow the next season.

Apple and hazelnut trees grown out of control, pruning helps keep trees healthy.

A lot of new gardeners struggle with the concepts of deadheading, pruning, and pinching off new growth.  It's hard to accept that you need to remove healthy (and unhealthy) growth from a plant to improve it.  Even seasoned gardeners have difficulty pruning a fruit tree if they imagine all the fruits that branch might produce.  Keep in mind that growth is good, but some growth is not.  Overgrowth in a tree can cut down air flow through branches leading to mold and fungus growth, dead flowers left to seed on a annual will make it leggy and bare, and too many flowers in a tomato plant can lead to an overabundance of poor fruits. 

Remember that a plant is working with a limited nutrient supply.  Your apple tree or tomato may put on tons of flowers, but if they aren't able to pull up adequate nutrition from the soil and sun, the fruits that develop may be tasteless, small, or susceptible to pests and diseases.  Far better to trim down excess branches or flowers and ensure that the crop that reaches maturity is of the best quality.

My dad's property has an apple tree that has probably been there for eighty years, it is beautiful in full bloom.  Dad never pruned it, and insisted the fruits on it were not worth eating, several years ago one of the largest branches broke off and I helped him to remove it.  I told him it needed to be pruned, by at least 1/3 of the branches.  He was uncertain at first and was afraid it would harm the tree beyond recovery.  Finally I convinced him and we took out all but the 3 largest branches, and a few smaller ones.  The tree is still alive and I'm happy to report that the apples that year were some of the best he'd ever gotten from that tree.  Deadheading, pruning and pinching plants are methods of removing growth that impairs the plant's ability to produce the very best that it can.  Keep this in mind as you cringe and fret with pruning shears in hand.

Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Just a quick post to address some of the most likely pests you'll have issue with in the garden.  Most garden pests are particular, tomato hornworms won't eat your lettuce, aphids may just stay centrally located on your rose buds, cabbage moths will lay their eggs primarily on the brassicas.  There are a few very common, very indiscriminate ravagers that you may come in contact with though: slugs and snails and pets.

Non-gardeners don't tend to think about pets as being garden pests, but take the word of someone with three cats: they can be the most destructive pests of all.  Nothing taunts a cat into tearing up tiny baby transplants like the soft, freshly turned dirt in a garden.  It calls to them to be turned into their own private toilet.  One of my cats even enjoys nibbling on the plants themselves.  Dogs can be a problem too, if your garden is in an area where your dog runs free it looks like no more than the perfect place to dig, poop, and roll around.  There are many suggested ways to keep pets out of the garden beds.  They range from motion detecting sprinklers, to hot pepper sprinkles, to sticking skewers point-up throughout the bed.  I've tried a few of these options, the sprinkler didn't make sense since my garden is so small and the cats enjoy the patio without causing any damage.  The skewers did work but I stabbed myself with them while weeding more often than I liked.  I was not willing to possibly do real harm to the kitties with hot peppers though.  This year I will go with what seems to me to be the most practical solution, it won't hurt them, or the plants, and isn't terribly expensive either.
This year I will build 4'x4' frames of 2"x2" wood posts, and wrap chicken wire around them in a small dome.  These covers will let light and water through to the plants, but keep out the destructive cats and as a bonus any other critters larger than a mouse.  They also can work as handy frames to stretch plastic or floating row cover over if needed.

Slugs and snails are a huge menace to new transplants as well, and are most prolific just when plants are put into the ground in the springtime.  Again, there are probably about half a million suggested ways to deal with these menaces.  I prefer to bait for them with organic-approved slug bait to keep the population in check.  You can also use beer traps, boards, and copper to manage them.  Beer traps are one of the best known ways to rid yourself of slugs, they are shallow dishes buried to soil level and filled with beer.  Apparently slugs have a real taste for beer and will drown themselves trying to drink it.  For a more hands on approach, and one that won't leave your garden full of beer dishes, you can lay a board across the soil and leave it overnight.  Each morning lift the board up and pick off the slugs that have taken shelter under its shade, then squish them or move them somewhere far away from your plants.  The one other method I've heard of to keep slugs and snails out of the garden is to surround plants with copper, which supposedly gives them a little shock if they slide over it.  I have yet to try this one out, so can't guarantee its effectiveness.  However, you don't have to go buy special copper tape for this method, you can lay down a circle of pennies that touch each other around each plant.  Some combination of any or all of these methods should keep even the sluggiest garden safe.  I plan to give the pennies a try this year; I'll bait like usual and then surround a few plants with pennies to see if it makes a difference in the amount of damage done.

Happy Gardening!

Hooray for Tiny Black Alligators!

Thought I'd share a little snippet of information I learned last summer.

In early June my celery plants and a few others bolted and started to put out flowers, since I didn't plan to collect seed from these plants I decided to pull them out to let more light get to the plants around them.  When I brought the celery plants inside to rinse the remaining usable stalks and put them in the fridge I noticed lots of tiny black alligators crawling around on the plants.  After getting severely weirded out by the creepy crawlies and washing them down the sink I figured I should look them up to find out if I had a pest problem that needed dealing with.

Luckily for me there are lots of websites with information on insect identification.  As it turns out the tiny black alligators are ladybug nymphs, the scourge of aphids.  And I had washed them down the drain!  These were not pests, they were beneficials who's home I had uprooted, and then drowned.
  Here's a link with some great photos of what these little critters look like
Well, I learned my lesson, from now on I will identify any and all bugs I find before I kill them. :(

As it turns out, ladybugs like to lay their eggs on Umbrelliferae species.  These include carrots, celery, queen anne's lace, and most other flowers that bloom in flattened umbrella-like clusters of small flowers.  This year, I'll let the celery flower, even if I don't need the seed.  I also plan to sneak into the empty lot next door and disperse some Beneficial Bug flower mix, if it's going to be full of weeds, they may as well be habitat for helpful insects.

Learn about the habitat and food needs of beneficials to keep a healthy organic garden. If you provide homes, food, and water they will return the favor with pollination and pest management.