TikTok
Slugs, snails and cabbage butterflies are the natural enemies of any gardener, but this hack will save your vegies!
The bright, healthy garden of your dreams can be blighted by insects and pests that wreak havoc on your vegies. From eating cabbages to sucking the life out of your lemon trees, your vegie patch may not be able to produce a good harvest if infested.
But, one gardener on Tiktok has shared his favourite trick to keep the pesky pests at bay.
And the answer to all your problems is… nasturtiums!
As Joe from the Joesgarden TikTok account (@joesgarden) explains, nasturtiums have the amazing ability to not only repel pests, but actually attract them.
In another form of companion planting for vegetables, pest attractors like nasturtium play a vital role in drawing in all of the insects that would usually attack your vegies, and provide them with a new plant to feast on.
Joe says that he plants nasturtium in ‘every part’ of his garden as a way to attract pests away from his more prized plants and give them a good feed of flowers.
How does nasturtium companion planting work?
Nasturtium attracts a myriad of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ insects to your garden, because it is extremely tasty to creepy crawlies. This method of companion planting is often called trap cropping, because you essentially ‘trap’ your pests in a crop you don’t mind getting eaten.
Nasturtium attracts pests such as:
This means that all of your other plants that are usually infested with these bugs are free to grow big and healthy!
The best places to plant nasturtium in your garden are close to plants that can be affected by these pests, including:
- zucchini
- tomatoes
- potatoes
- broccoli
- cabbages
- cauliflower
- cucumbers
- kale
- pumpkins
- radishes
- squash
- lettuce
A chemical free solution
Of course, pests can always be eliminated with pesticides or other chemical-based products, but companion planting is chemical-free.
Having an eco-friendly, natural solution to ridding your plants of pests is always a great choice. And the additional benefits of nasturtium are an added bonus!
Nasturtium is a beautiful, and very easy to grow plant, which will provide beautiful orange and red blooms throughout summer and autumn. Not only that, but nasturtium is actually edible, and you can eat every single part of the plant!
Joe from the Joesgarden TikTok account recommends adding it to salads to give them a peppery kick.
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