IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BUGS
Saturday, I went to the Farmers Market and brought home a nice supply of bug-repelling herbs and four green pepper plants for the garden.
Basil: is supposed to repel mosquitos and flies but I bought it more for its culinary use. I bought Columnar Basil, a variety that is new to me, and will harvest and dry it for use in the kitchen.
Lavender: repels flies, mosquitos, slugs, squash bugs, ants, and ticks. I don’t much like the smell of it either but if it really does repel ticks maybe I should weave ankle bracelets out of the stuff.
Lemongrass: repels flies, mosquitos, and snakes. I did not have a snake problem last year so I want to see if those results can be replicated. It worked really well for the flies and mosquitos.
Rosemary: flies, mosquitos, slugs. I’m not sure it did anything about the slugs last year as it seems there are more slugs on my property than the number of people living in Alamance County.
Chocolate Mint and Apple Mint: I doubt these will work on bugs like regular mint (flies, mosquitos, squash bugs) but I’ve always wanted a Chocolate Mint plant and the Apple Mint smelled yummy. That is a good enough reason to get them, don’t you agree?
Parsley: I bought this last year to repel flies but found that the butterflies laid their eggs on it and the resulting caterpillars devoured it before I could harvest and use it in the kitchen. I went ahead and bought some though to use as a Trap Plant, luring those voracious little critters away from the rest of my garden.
Lemon Verbena: I was lured by the smell of this plant but Google promises that flies and mosquitos hate it.
Chives: I don’t use chives in the kitchen but I read that planting chives with your apple trees helps deter Japanese Beetles – a true bane / blight / scourge for me – so anything that might do that gets a try at least once. One source said it also may help repel borers and prevent apple scab fungus from ruining your fruit. If it works that is one powerful plant that will have a permanent home in my garden.
It rained all weekend, so nothing was put in the ground. It was sorely needed though so I was grateful for the rain.
Tonight, I planted the chives at the base of the apple trees.
The garlic chives were planted with the Mary Reid and the regular (onion) chives were planted with the Golden Grimes.
The Golden Grimes (left) has oodles of apples on it already! The Mary Reid (right) has just a few.
I will be working on getting the rest of my Farmers Market haul planted throughout the week. The plan for next weekend is to buy flowers. They likely will also be chosen based on their bug-repelling properties.
I hate bugs.
Two Chickens Homestead 
I seem to remember having the energy to do all that you do after work and weekends – gone now! LOL. I get tired just reading about your days! Love you, enjoy your garden – hopefully some things will still be there when I get there! Are we shooting for 1st 2 weeks in October? ________________________________
LikeLike
Pingback: HARVEST TIME – Two Chickens Homestead