Mixing It up in the Garden
Flowers and herbs make good companions for your vegetables

BY SHARON PARKER

In my garden of a few years ago I had a patch of German chamomile that sprawled over most of a four-by-six-foot raised bed. I was admiring the pretty little daisy-like blossoms and mild apple scent one day when I noticed that it was abuzz with tiny beelike insects. This was a welcome visitation, for whether these were hover flies or syrphid flies or any of the minute parasitic wasps that are attracted to the nectar and pollen in small flowers, they’re just the sort of creature that a large organic farm encourages (or may even purchase) to patrol their fields and keep the plant-eating pests in check. That’s because when they’re not sipping nectar or eating pollen, they prey on those other insects, either to eat them or to use them as hosts for their offspring.

So even though I never got around to drying the herb to make tea or a hair rinse or for any of its many medicinal uses, I was still rewarded for devoting a sizeable chunk of my garden to this and several other nonvegetables, for they helped to keep the whole garden happy and thriving.

I know that many people who have not gardened before will be planting vegetable gardens this year, and I realize that their reasons are highly practical: to grow their own food more cheaply than they can buy it. I want to encourage all vegetable gardeners, new and experienced, to broaden their plant palette to include many flowers and herbs that they might have thought were purely ornamental. Don’t be fooled by their pretty blossoms. Such plants—even some that you might know best as weeds—are indeed useful complements to any garden.

For while the vegetables that you plant will have no trouble attracting aphids, caterpillars and other leaf-chewers, those ornamental plants will attract the critters that eat the pests. Equally important, flowers attract pollinators—bumblebees and such—without whom your carefully tended plants will bear no fruit at all.

Urban hedgerows, or the mixed-shrub border Old-fashioned farm fields were separated by hedgerows, which were lines of trees and shrubs along the borders that acted as windbreaks, limiting erosion and keeping dust down. They also served, possibly without the farmers’ knowledge or intent, as habitat for beneficial insects and birds. Even if the hedgerow was originally planted with only one type of tree, over time it would collect a variety of plant species from the seeds that blew into them or were carried there by birds. So there would be berries and flowers to feed small helpful critters, and shelter to harbor them, as well.

There are several “hedgerow projects” around the United States and elsewhere in the world promoting the reintroduction of this practice. For the small city gardener, this may seem impractical, but consider how many urban and
suburban yards have hedges. These usually comprise a single species of something selected for its nice leaves and form. Imagine instead a hedge of mixed species that offered flowers and small fruit at different times throughout the growing season.

Some popular garden shrubs that bear flowers and/or fruit for birds and insects are the viburnums, cotoneaster, dogwoods, weigela, hardy rugosa roses and spirea. The native and old-fashioned varieties are usually going to be the most wildlife-friendly forms, because the qualities that plant breeders select for (like larger and brighter flowers, and often sterile or nonfruiting forms) are not necessarily the ones that insects and birds favor.

A banquet in the lawn
Common weeds that grow in and along the edges of lawns are popular with bees, ladybugs and other beneficials. This includes dandelions, lamb’s quarters, clover and oxeye daisies.

Other helpful, though weedy, flowers with exuberant (translation: “invasive”) growth habits that you may want to confine to a corner of your yard north or east of the garden, or along the alley next to the garage, include Queen Anne’s lace, white yarrow and tansy. Keep in mind that the prevailing summer winds are from the south and southwest, and so consider where they will carry the seeds of these pretty, but pushy, flowers. If they sprout in the lawn, their spread is easily controlled by mowing, but in the garden it becomes a bit more of a bother to keep them from taking over.

Culinary herbs throughout the garden also help keep the insect populations in balance, especially if you leave some of them to flower. In general, it’s the small flowers that attract the helpful insects. Besides chamomile, consider planting thyme, sage, basil, lavender and rosemary amongst your vegetables. In a separate area, because they are invasive, plant oregano and garlic chives. Mints are great, but spread aggressively—less so in the shade, though. In fact, they are an excellent choice for shady spots where not much else will grow.

You may have heard that marigolds benefit tomatoes by repelling nematodes, a tiny organism that dwells in the soil and attacks the roots of its hapless
targets. While it’s true that marigolds help get rid of nematodes, some research suggests that the effect is not immediate—the flowers need to have grown in the soil the year before you plant tomatoes there. Here’s where crop rotation is a smart practice—don’t plant tomatoes (or any vegetables) in the same spot year after year, and as long as you’re going to plant them somewhere else next year, consider where that might be and plant marigolds in that spot this year.

Several years ago, I interviewed Theresa Mieseler, co-owner, with her husband, Jim, of Shady Acres Herb Farm in Chaska. They don’t call themselves an organic operation, but it soon became apparent that they use no pesticides. While they sometimes purchase beneficial insects to patrol their greenhouses, they had no trouble with pests in their fields outdoors.

Theresa attributed this to the fact that they grew a diverse range of herbs, attracting various beneficial insects. She was certain that it was the diversity, and not just the fact that they grew herbs (as opposed to growing all lavender, for example), that kept everything healthy. (She also credited good air circulation, but that’s another topic.)

So mix it all up—in your garden, in your hedge, in your lawn—so that your vegetables will thrive, and you’ll find that you enjoy your garden even more; for all the beauty and diversity and tasty herbs and fluttering insects will surely delight you as much as they do the bumblebees.