WHAT FLOWERS DO YOU PLANT in the vegetable garden to encourage good pollination of your food crops? That was the great question raised the other day in the Urgent Garden Question Forum by member NanZ. Want to hear the many answers (or better yet, come on over and give one of your own)? Here’s your free ticket to come listen in (OK, it’s always free, but you can’t blame a girl for trying to sound extra enticing, can you?).
WHEN I TALKED to Doug Tallamy in February around the publication date of his latest book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” I didn’t want to go on and on about the advice in it regarding smart fall cleanup, which is one of the ways I know I’ve dramatically shifted the way I manage my own garden compared to 10 or even five years ago. But we were looking ahead to spring then, not fall.
I’m grateful that Doug returned to the podcast in autumn to do just that. Want to plan your most ecologically minded garden cleanup ever, and understand the consequences of each potential action you can take—including next spring?
The subtitle of University of Delaware professor Doug Tallamy’s recent book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” is “A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard.” Meaning: The choices we make all year-round, including the very important one of how we clean up, can help counteract an overdeveloped, fragmented landscape that puts the food web to the test. You and I are nature’s best hope, and I’m glad Doug joined me again to help us learn to support it.
(Stream it below, read the illustrated transcript or subscribe free.)
What a great question… and an easy one since there are so many! I’ll have to take a listen…
I always plant marigolds around my tomatoes as it supposedly helps keep bugs away. Seems to work for me. :)
Calendula and sunflowers are favorites in my veggie garden.
Welcome, Angie. Those are two I have used here, too. The calendulas always self-sow the following year, and then they bloom so early…which is also nice. Hope to see you again soon.
I have found that caryopteris attracts tons of bees. We have a two acre food bank community garden and will be planting pollinator attracting plants all through the fields…wildflowers, sunflowers, cosmos, etc. Perennials will be planted on the borders (caryopteris and buddleia among oithers)………………. We also have three beehives going in the adjacent fields. We hope to increase production and are very interested in responses you get.
Any kind of herb.