- 2 days ago
Discover how 10 garden plants can help tip the balance against common pests—without relying on synthetic pesticides. This practical guide to natural pest control and companion planting covers marigolds, catnip, nasturtiums, garlic, chives, tansy, dill, petunias, borage, and wormwood, explaining which insects they may deter, attract, or draw away from vegetables.
Learn where to plant these natural garden pest deterrents, from weaving marigolds among tomatoes to using nasturtiums as trap crops and keeping wormwood at the garden’s edge. The advice also includes important cautions about spreading plants and pyrethrum spray, which can harm bees while wet. Explore organic vegetable gardening, beneficial insects, pollinator-friendly planting, and simple ways to build a healthier garden ecosystem.
Learn where to plant these natural garden pest deterrents, from weaving marigolds among tomatoes to using nasturtiums as trap crops and keeping wormwood at the garden’s edge. The advice also includes important cautions about spreading plants and pyrethrum spray, which can harm bees while wet. Explore organic vegetable gardening, beneficial insects, pollinator-friendly planting, and simple ways to build a healthier garden ecosystem.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Before there was a bottle for every bug and a garden store on every corner, folks still kept the aphid
00:06and the beetle and the cabbage moth off their crops, and they did it with no poison at all. They
00:12did it with plants.
00:14Certain plants carry in their own leaves and roots a defense so strong that the pest will not come near
00:21them, and the old people learned which ones and planted them in among their vegetables on purpose, like setting guards
00:29at a gate.
00:30That knowledge got near buried under 70 years of sprays. Today I am going to dig it back up and
00:37hand you 10 of those plants, 10 guards you can set in your own garden this year,
00:43and I will tell you plainly what each one does and exactly where to put it. Stay with me, for
00:50the 10th is the one the old countries squeezed into the very bottle the store sells you now, and you
00:57can grow it yourself for the price of a seed.
01:00Now one honest word before we start, so you trust me the whole way through. You will see this sort
01:07of thing called a way to stop pests instantly, and I will not tell you that,
01:12for it is not true, and you would catch me in it the first bad summer. A guard plant does
01:19not throw up a wall nothing can cross. What it does is far better than a lie.
01:24It confuses the pest, it drives off the lazy half of them, it pulls the rest away onto itself, and
01:32it calls in the little hunters that eat what is left,
01:35so that your crop comes through whole where your neighbor's is lace. It is strong, and it is fast, and
01:43it works, but it works like nature works,
01:46by tipping the scales hard in your favor, not by magic. Hold that in mind, and you will never be
01:53disappointed in it.
01:55I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com. The book is the long version. If you
02:02want it, it is there. I will not mention it again.
02:06The first is the marigold, and it is first because it does its work on two levels at once, above
02:13the ground and below it.
02:15Above, its strong smell muddles the white flies and the aphids that hunt by scent, so they drift past confused.
02:23But below the soil, where you cannot see, its roots give off something that poisons a tiny worm called the
02:31root nematode,
02:32the pest that swells and knots the roots of your tomatoes and stunts them from beneath.
02:38Here is the catch most folk miss. They plant a pretty ring of marigolds around the far edge of the
02:45garden,
02:45and wonder why the middle still suffers. The marigold guards close, not far.
02:51Weave it right in among the tomatoes and peppers, shoulder to shoulder, and for the nematodes,
02:57plant it thick a whole season ahead and turn it into that ground, and you clean the soil for next
03:04year.
03:05The second is catnip, and this one will surprise you, for most folk think it only a thing to delight
03:11a cat.
03:12But catnip is one of the strongest insect-driving plants there is, and it turns away a long list of
03:19troubles,
03:20the aphid, the flea beetle, the squash bug, the beetle that eats your potatoes.
03:25It is that same sharp oil in the leaf that sends a cat into a happy roll that the bugs
03:32cannot abide.
03:33The very thing that charms the one creature drives off the other.
03:38Set it near the crops that suffer those pests, and it guards hard, and it draws the bees to its
03:44little flowers besides.
03:46The one warning is the warning in its name. It will draw every cat in the neighborhood to come and
03:52roll in it,
03:53so do not plant it soft in among tender seedlings they will crush, but off at the edge where a
03:59cat may lull without flattening your supper.
04:01And it spreads, being a mint by family, so I would keep it penned in a pot sunk in the
04:08ground,
04:08the same as any mint, or it will wander your whole garden.
04:13The third is the nasturtium, and this one does not drive the pest off at all.
04:18It does the opposite, and that is its genius.
04:21The aphid loves a nasturtium beyond near anything, so you plant a cluster of them a few steps off from
04:28your good beds,
04:29and the aphids swarm to the nasturtium and leave your beans and cabbages be.
04:35The old folk called it a trap crop, a plant you are glad to sacrifice.
04:40And now your enemy is gathered in one place where you can see him and deal with him all at
04:46once.
04:47Hose the nasturtiums down hard, or pull them up whole, aphids and all, and feed them to the hens.
04:55Set the trap a little apart, mind, not woven in, or the pest will simply step across onto your crop.
05:03A pest you have gathered into one spot is a pest half beaten.
05:09The fourth is garlic, and its humble cousin the chive, the whole onion family really,
05:15and these are the sharp-smelling guards.
05:18The carrot fly is the great unseen thief of the carrot patch, coming by scent to lay her eggs,
05:26so her maggots bore your carrots through, and she is turned aside by the reek of an onion.
05:32So you plant a row of garlic or chives right alongside your carrots, and the one smell hides the other.
05:40Garlic turns off a good many beetles besides, and the chive guards the rose and the carrot both,
05:48and gives you its mild green onion tops for the kitchen all the while.
05:53A guard that seasons your soup is a guard worth keeping.
05:58The fifth is tansy, an old, old garden plant with button-yellow flowers, and it was grown at the farmhouse
06:07door for centuries to keep the ants and the flies off.
06:10It drives away the ant, the squash bug, the cutworm, and the cabbage white moth, whose green worm eats your
06:19cabbage hollow.
06:21Set it near the cabbages and the squash.
06:24But I owe you two honest warnings on the tansy, for I give you the whole of a thing.
06:30It spreads hard and will take over if you let it, so pen it or cut it back.
06:37And it is poisonous to eat, to man and to stock both, so it is a guard only, never a
06:45food, and keep it clear of the pasture.
06:49Grown with those two cautions in mind, it is a mighty old protector.
06:55The sixth is dill, and here is a plant that works both of the great ways at once.
07:02Its smell helps turn off the aphid, and the squash bug, and the cabbage worm, that is the one way.
07:09But the greater gift of the dill is the second way, and it is the one most folk never think
07:16of.
07:16Let it flower, that great flat golden head of tiny blooms, and it becomes a landing field and a feeding
07:25table for the little hunters,
07:27the hoverfly and the tiny wasp and the lacewing, the very ones whose young eat the aphid by the hundred.
07:36Those small hunters cannot feed on the pest alone.
07:40They need the nectar of just such a flat, open flower to keep their strength up and to breed.
07:47And the dill flower is one of the best tables you can set for them.
07:52So the dill drives off some pests by its smell and feeds the army that eats the rest.
07:58Let a good few plants go up to flower near your troubled beds and leave them be, and you feed
08:06your hunters while you season your own pickles.
08:09The one caution is to keep your flowering dill clear of your carrots, for the two are close kin and
08:17do not thrive side by side.
08:21The seventh is the petunia, and folk think it only a window box flower, but the old gardeners knew it
08:29for a true guard.
08:31It turns away the aphid, the leafhopper, the asparagus beetle, and even helps against the great tomato hornworm.
08:39It is easy as anything, it asks only sun, and it will spill its guarding color along the edge of
08:48a bed or down a row of beans all summer.
08:52Some of the old folk called it the workhorse that only looks like an ornament.
08:58Set it among the beans and the tomatoes and let it earn its keep.
09:03The eighth is borage, a rough, handsome plant with blue star flowers, and it is two guards in one.
09:13It is said to turn the tomato hornworm and the cabbage worm off the plants near it, that is, its
09:20guarding work.
09:21But its flowers are the thing, for a borage in bloom is loud with bees from dawn to dusk, and
09:30those bees, drawn in for the borage, stay to pollinate your squash and your beans and your cucumbers, so your
09:39fruit sets heavier for having borage near.
09:41A guard that doubles your pollination is a rare good bargain, and the blue flowers are sweet in a salad
09:50besides.
09:51The ninth is wormwood, or its kin, the artemesias, the gray, bitter-smelling herbs.
09:58And these are the heavy artillery of the guard plants, for their smell is strong and bitter, and a great
10:04many creatures cannot abide it,
10:06the cabbage moth, the carrot fly, the flea beetle, even the mice and the rabbits that would nibble your young
10:13plants.
10:14But this one comes with the firmest warning of all, so hear me.
10:19Wormwood does not only drive off pests, it holds back the growth of other plants near its roots, for that
10:26is its nature, to keep rivals down.
10:29So you never plant it in among your vegetables.
10:33You plant it as a border, a hedge at the outside edge, a guard wall set well apart from the
10:39beds,
10:40where its bitter breath keeps the rabbits and the moths off without stunting your crop.
10:45Kept to the edge, it is a powerful protector. Set among your food, it would choke it. Mind the difference.
10:53And the tenth, the one I promised you, is the chrysanthemum, and not the fat autumn mum from the store
11:00step,
11:01but the plain daisy kind, white petals and a yellow eye, the one the old books call the dalmatian daisy.
11:09That humble flower is where pyrethrum comes from, the very thing they squeeze out of these petals and bottle and
11:17sell you at a dear price at the garden store.
11:19You can grow the bottle in your own bed. A patch of them in full bloom guards everything near it,
11:26for the flower holds its strongest medicine just as it opens.
11:31And you can make your own gentle spray from them the way the old countries have for a hundred years,
11:37dry the flowers, steep a good handful in water a day and a night,
11:42strain it clean, and use it at once, for it loses its strength fast in the light.
11:48But I must give you a plain safety word on that spray, and I will not soften it.
11:54Pyrethrum is gentle to you, and it breaks down to nothing in a day of sunlight, which is why even
12:00the strictest organic growers allow it.
12:02But while it is wet, it is death to bees and to fish alike. So you use it only in
12:09the early morning or at dusk, when the bees are abed, and never near a pond or a creek or
12:15a water barrel.
12:16Guard your garden, but do not kill the very bees that bring you your fruit, for a man who poisons
12:23his pollinators to save his cabbage has made a poor trade indeed.
12:28My grandmother's garden was bordered all around with these guard plants, and I did not understand it as a boy,
12:35for it looked to me like she had simply let flowers and weeds grow up wild along the edge of
12:40her good straight rows.
12:42Marigolds jammed in among the tomatoes, a stand of tansy by the gate, the gray wormwood along the fence, borage
12:50humming with bees in the corner.
12:52I asked her once why she did not keep it tidy like the neat bare rows the neighbor kept.
12:58She said, boy, his neat rows are a table set for every pest in the county, and my wild edge
13:05is a wall of guards none of them will cross.
13:08He will spray all summer and lose, and I will not spray at all and win, and come fall you
13:14tell me whose way was tidier.
13:16She was right, as she was right about most things. Her beds came through clean every year, and she never
13:24owned a bottle of poison in her life.
13:26So let me say plainly, who gains by you believing the only answer to a pest is a bottle off
13:33the shelf?
13:33The company that sells the bottle gains every spring, for a sprayed pest comes back, and the bottle runs dry,
13:41and you buy another, season on season, forever.
13:45And the spray cannot tell a friend from an enemy, so it kills the bees and the little hunters along
13:50with the pest,
13:51and with your hunters dead, the pest returns worse than before, and you are bound to the bottle for good.
13:58It is not that anyone schemed it so, it is only that a bottle can be sold to you again
14:04and again, and a packet of marigold seed cannot,
14:08so the bottle is pushed, and these ten old guards are quietly let slip from memory.
14:13But the guards were always the better way, and they cost you almost nothing, and the perennial ones among them
14:20only grow stronger year on year.
14:22Now tell me this in the comments.
14:25Which pest plagues you the worst?
14:27The aphid?
14:28The cabbage moth?
14:29The carrot fly?
14:31The squash bug?
14:32For whichever it is, there is one of these ten set to stand guard against it.
14:37And tell me as well whether you grow in the open ground, in raised beds, or all in pots on
14:44a patio,
14:44for that changes which of these ten I would set you to first.
14:48Next time I will show you the other half of this knowledge, the plants you must never set side by
14:55side,
14:56the companions that quarrel in the bed and stunt and sicken one another.
15:01For knowing what to keep apart is every bit as old and useful as knowing what to plant together.
15:07But for now, do not reach first for the bottle.
15:12Set a few of these ten guards among your crops, and let the garden defend itself.
15:17The people who built this country with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting to remember it.
15:24Let's go.
15:24Let's go.