Re: Flowers in the veggies

On Tue 29 Dec, Ian Gill wrote:
> Howdy everyone,
>                             After extracting more than 300 slugs from my greenhouse
> this year I thought I would share a capture technique that has worked very well for
> me here in New Zealand.
> 
> I am now growing, or attempting to grow, marigolds in my veggie patches. The slugs
> go crazy for them and it is an easy matter to go out at night armed with a
> flashlight and a bucket of hot water and pull slugs off the marigold plants. Even
> very tiny slugs are easy to see on the heavily scented foliage.
> 
> I have planted small marigold plants in rows in areas I want to protect, such as
> next to my cucumber plants. So far the slugs have shown a preference for the
> marigolds over anything else I grow in the greenhouse.
> 
> Perhaps the biggest bonus has been the ability to use the plants as an indicator
> that there are slugs in the immediate vicinity. Damage is very obvious and the
> culprit slug is usually very easy to find nearby during the day.
> 
> Toward the beginning of  next planting season I plan to pre plant marigolds. They
> are very easy to produce in quantity in seed boxes.
> 
> Marigolds are far better than beer traps.
> 
> 
> Regards  Ian Gill    Westland  NZ
> 
Are you using tagetes sp. or calendula sp.? You must have heard of
companion planting, also edible flowers. Tagetes can ward off aphids,
Calendula are edible.
 In either case there is a whole world to be discovered
or re-discovered. There are quite a number of sources of info, but it is
difficult to get authentication of facts. I am quite sure that a lot of
this could be applied to mainstream veggie gardening. My latest info is
that most of the amaranth family are edible but they generally come
under the flowers section in catalogues, if at all. Calendula is edible,
Tagetes is listed as a companion plant esp. with tomatoes. We could all
do with encouraging bees, hoverflies and lacewings.
 More later, no doubt.

-- 

Allan Day  Hereford HR2 7AU allan@crwys.demon.co.uk
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