Posted on 01/23/2021 7:09:12 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Here is a blend of flowers and herbs I use to attract Beneficial Insects to my garden. I start plugs in 4” pots and then either plant a ‘plug’ in the corner of a raised bed, or I plant up bigger pots that I put in the beds.
Use one packet of seed, each. Mix them all together and sew them in small pots, or right in the ground after the threat of frost has passed.
Beneficial Bug Blend Recipe:
Dill (short variety)
Blue Bachelor Buttons
Orange Cosmos
Cilantro
Orange Calendula
This mix brings in REAL Lady Bugs and Lacewings and beneficial wasps. You’ll probably see some Monarch larvae munching on the dill in late summer.
Let both the dill and cilantro go to flower, too. It’s really pretty and also makes a nicely scented Kitchen Table Bouquet.
You mean my imaginary garden? Definitely the Atomic Grape tomatoes, which I read about here!
The pepper plants I planted last spring are still alive in the ground and loaded with baby jalapenos and bells.
I loosely covered them with a tarp last night because we were supposed to havs a hard freeze.
I’ll be tickled to pieces if they survive and thrive this year.
Roma tomatoes, peppers and squash are my bare minimum. I tried some different things last year. The honeydews and canteloupes were nice but I only got a few teeny ones.
Never could get those to grow before.
Beefy Resilient Beans. Because I don’t actually like the taste of beans, and these don’t taste like beans. They taste like beef. They also don’t cause gas like other beans! And they live up to the “resilient” part, too. They produce more per row-foot than any other bean I’ve ever grown.
Dragon’s Egg cucumbers are the variety I keep gravitating back to. They stay sweet at any stage, even when they’re so over-ripe they look more like a melon. In fact, you can treat them like a melon if you want to. It’s that sweet. The white color makes them easy to find, too.
I try to grow one of each of the 4 main branches of the squash family. Last year I discovered a 5th branch, so “Great Lakes Shark Fin” is on my list of musts. The others I’m a little more flexible with, but this year I’ll be repeating what I grew last year, which is Bigger Better Butternut, Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead, Calabasa de las Aguas, and my ongoing pumpkin-breeding project.
For potatoes, my Mom has already requested more Elfe’s. They did outstandingly well last year, and Mom says they made the best hash-browns she’s ever tasted!
For tomatoes, Punta Banda is my main go-to. I try to plant at least 5 different varieties, but that’s the one that makes it to the list every time. It’s a compact indeterminate, which means it gives you an ongoing harvest without sprawling like most indeterminates do. And the stem pulls free of the fruit, so there’s no need to core them before processing.
(I don’t actually like the taste of raw tomatoes, so I don’t know how they do in a salad. All my tomatoes get cooked.)
There’s a grape-tomato that tends to plant itself every year, so I’ll be growing that whether I intend to or not. That’s ok, because they’re also my chickens’ favorite treat. I’d been calling it “Baby Paste” because it had the meatiness of a paste tomato, in a tiny bite-sized package. But I’ve been outvoted, so now it’s called “Mini Paste”. One unique thing I’ve noticed is that the vines tend to creep along the ground so low, that I didn’t realize how many I had until after a few frosts. The creeping charlie died back enough to show an Entire. Freaking. Carpet of little ripe tomatoes lining the ground underneath! This tomato actually used creeping charlie as a frost blanket! How weird is that?
I grew those last season. They are freaky-cool!
You are the Bean Queen, for sure, LOL!
Could your little tomato have originally been a ‘Valentine?’ Sounds like it to me, but who knows.
I love ‘Sweet Meat’ squash. :)
The herbs are about my speed...especially the chives! LOL.
No idea what the tomato originally was. It originally grew out of a mix of compost and old potting soil. The mice and critters would grab one and take it elsewhere to eat it, spreading seeds everywhere.
I had a cutting from the original that I tried to grow indoors. When I hurt my back, that thing went 6 weeks without being watered, and still survived!
“...that thing went 6 weeks without being watered, and still survived!”
It’s either a Franken-Fruit from Monsanto, or an Amish strain. ;)
Multiple peppers hot and sweet. Lacinato kale, soybeans beets (borage for the pretty purple flowers and because tomatoes over them) peas and squash varieties.
I started 4 of the 6 hot peppers varieties you sent me. Only been in the pots/greenhouse for 3 days.
I may have to try those next year
It’s a challenge to remember until I look at the catalog but I’ll give it a try for favorites.
Yukon gold potatoes.
Siberian garlic.
Winter wheat and rye-whatver is in stock
Tomatoes-I have a volunteer that has cherry size clusters-I don’t know for sure the name-I’ve been saving the seeds and planting each year for several years.
Roma Tomatoes
Corn - Stowell’s Evergreen
Cantaloupe - Minnesota Midget
Beans-Italian style bush
lettuce - any Romaine style
lettuce-winter density
Sweet Pepper - California Wonder
Tumeric - A beautiful plant planted next to patio gets tall and lush looking. I have to bring it indoors and it dies down till I replant it outdoors in the spring.
I have noticed that I get about a quart of sauce per plant overall.
The tomatoes ripen over the course of a few weeks, and by Sept , they are done and I’m pulling them up. But it certainly gives you enough tomatoes in a short period of time to make canning a batch of sauce worth it. I usually end up doing several batches each season. Course, like all tomatoes, it depends on the weather.
One summer was so cold and wet we essentially didn’t have one until Aug, when we hit a stretch of beautiful warm weather, then the plants went nuts, but it was too late for a crop. But everyone had the same problem. It was not the variety.
I tried three different types of potatoes last year, Superior, Red Pontiac, and Kennebec.
The Superior did OK. Nice flavor.
The Red Pontiac gave me some nice size potatoes and a decent crop.
The Kennebec were stellar.
And this was the year of the neglected garden, what with moving. And I had tomato hornworms decimate my crop. It was a tough year that way and I was still impressed with the crop I got.
So this summer, it’s going to be only the Red Pontiac and the Kennebec.
👍Hubby plants various types of potatoes. I think he planted the Red Pontiac. I just bought a bag of organic yukon gold one year and planted the ones that were sprouting. From then on, I have planted what’s left of the one’s I grow.
About every 3rd year, I purchase additional to mix in. I love the yukon gold potatoes and of course the Idaho baking ones. I’ll tell hubby to get some Kennebec if we have some locally.
I have started a few myself. I also supply a local cafe that we frequent with homemade Tabasco sauce so I can be sure that there is something to spice up our food when we are there. I could stop growing completely tomorrow and I would still have a lifetime's supply of powders, flakes and sauces.
I have expanded my garden pretty much as big as it can get. I don’t have room for all of what I want to grow until I move to Texas on my recently purchase acreage.
My bride is all about tomatoes.
I, on the other hand, are more interested in root crops, beans, and cucumbers. I am looking for cattle panels to form arches over our raised beds. Going vertical as well as bush.
Gonna be a fun year. I need to get one of those collection pumps to push water from the basement sink up and into the drain line to the septic system. Then, plumb the hot and cold water down to the faucet. Long overdue.
Your repellent pot mix sounds great and very clever.
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