April 16th, 2008 · No Comments

Sustainable gardening is becoming a fast-growing trend among gardeners, because they want to do their part to reduce chemical runoff.

“It’s all about trying to find ways to reduce the use of chemicals in the environment,’’ said Frederick master gardener Phyllis Heuerman. ”They’re finding too many pollutants are getting into the waterways, and lot of them are excess insecticides and fertilizers…We’re concerned about the Chesapeake Bay here in Maryland.”

Heuerman isn’t a religious companion planter, but there are certain basics she follows in her vegetable garden like planting herbs and marigolds, because the scent repels some predator insects. She also plants lettuce under tomato plants to protect it from the summer sun. She recommends garlic as a way to shoo aphids from roses and veggies, and basil to keep mosquitoes away from you.

In an article on companion gardening written for the Frederick Gardener’s website, she lists many other secrets of the craft, some of which don’t make intuitive sense, such as the recommendation to plant decoy squash and pumpkin plants to draw cucumber beetles away from the cucumbers (inexplicably cucumber beetles prefer squash to cuke plants?).

A couple other ideas from Heuerman: Marigolds can help deter bugs that are specifically harmful to tomatoes (hint: plant them near tomatoes). Nasturtium flowers are famous for repelling certain aphids and a host of other bad bugs from tomatoes, cabbage and other veggies.

Another Frederick gardener, Lee Royer, said she found a truly clever idea for keeping a garden healthy at another club’s show. The group had created what they called an “ABC wagon” (Attract Beneficial Critters), a wheelbarrow full of herbs, decoy and butterfly-friendly plants that was decorated and could be moved around the garden or yard to attract and/or repel bugs in different areas.

This mobile “companion garden” appealed to Royer, because in all honesty, plotting a garden and aggressively employing companion techniques can be rigorous. Crop rotation, she says, is simply and just as important, if not more important – and she has reason to know having grown backyard crops for a CSA.

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