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pests Anyone use "trap crops" or companion plants for pest control?

ditter

ditter

Read a university article about "trap crops" that attract pests away from more valuable plants. For example, gardners will plant nasturtium in a garden because caterpillars love it and are naturally attracted to it before other vegetable plants. Better to learn of caterpillars when seeing a cheap nasturtium plant get eaten up rather than your prized peppers.

Also read that aphids are attracted to marigolds so you can sacrifice one of those if they appear. And if you have a strong scented herb in your garden (basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano) aphids will tend to stay away. Another point was some flowers will also attract beneficial insects which feed on aphids.

Seems like a no-lose proposition. Of course the article focused on large scale farming operations. Anyone do this in a home gardening setup?
 
I also plant Marigolds around the garden. I'm not sure how much they actually help, but my family has always done it so I just followed suit.
This year I also had 2 Kale plants come up unplanned that I left alone. The bulk of my aphids this spring attacked them instead of my peppers and Maters. The underside of the Kale leaves were seriously nothing but Aphids. I also did this last year with a Cauliflower. Aphids swarmed on it, but left everything else alone other than a few strays.
 
I've seen a youtube video of a gardening method where he planted buckwheat for the purpose of attracting pests to it so it doesnt bother his real crop which was his veg garden.

He also planted flowering plants to attract beneficial insects too.

Forgot what it was.

I'll just do the repellent version minus the attracting ones. Herbs and whatnot. Already got a few seedlings growing.
 
I tried the marigold in the garden thing but it just seemed to attract more aphids which kept breeding. Even if you use the maridolds only for sacrifice, you need to do it before the population moves on to your peppers and other plants.
I also grew radishes indoors to attract aphids but they breed and spead too fast to keep up with :(
This year I notice the aphids love basil
 
We have a basil patch in front of the house and i dont see any pests. So hopefully my peppers when they get to be larger wont have it either.
 
I have a bunch of marigolds planted in my pepper beds in the ground and don't have nearly as bad an aphid problem as I do with ones in containers.
I'm a believer.
 
I use Marigolds but I don't believe they make a dang bit of difference. If anything, they seem to attract aphids to the general area. But I still have them around out of habit.

One thing about Marigolds - many are yellow. Yellow plants attract stink bugs. In parts of the northeast here we are not just infested with stink bugs, we are being overrun. A house in Maryland which is not far fom my place, they estimated 5 MILLION stink bugs in the walls and interior of the house. That's a lotta stink bugs. Last year we were fending them off the peppers, not to mention our living room and bedroom. There is no way to get rid of them. They are very destructive in gardens and can destroy a pepper plant in a day or two by sucking the juices out of the pods and leaving you with a gross mess. A swam of them descended on my Jaloro plant and destroyed it, in hours. Fotunately, they do not seem the least bit interested in chinenses, so that's worth something. I suggest being cautious about yellow plants near the vegetables or at all, at least until there's some clarity about what the stink bug situation is gonna look like this year.
 
mega said:
One thing about Marigolds - many are yellow. Yellow plants attract stink bugs. In parts of the northeast here we are not just infested with stink bugs, we are being overrun. A house in Maryland which is not far fom my place, they estimated 5 MILLION stink bugs in the walls and interior of the house. That's a lotta stink bugs.
Click to expand...


Pardon my French but that is facked up!!!!
 
I also heard somewhere that if you plant lettuce in between all the chillies then let them go to seed it keeps the aphids away, something to do with the bitterness after they have gone to seed. Not sure on how true it is as I have not yet tried myself but at the cost of a lettuce what is there to lose?
 
It'd be cool if it would work, but I have doubts. Haven't tried it so far. Problem is, it's already enough money, space and effort for the plants I really do want... adding various herbs and flowers purely as repellents would only add to it. On the other hand, I do like garlic and heard it's excellent as a repellent, and was considering growing some of that at some point. The fact that it's supposedly a good repellent would just be a nice side-effect.

Actually, there's a lot of plants that are supposedly repellents that I like... but many of them I just can't justify growing in the ground instead of in containers clear of the ground (if I even grew them at all). The various mints will go wild if given the chance; depending on the location, I might not want that. Catnip will attract all the neighborhood stray cats (as if they're not already here enough due to feeding our own outside cats), not to mention it'll be destroyed in a day by the cats if it's not hanging up high in a pot. Any herb grown for the consumption of their leaves in cooking and teas would be better off growing away from the ground where insects are less likely to lurk, and away from the heavy downpours that splash mud all over their leaves and weigh them down to the mud, and where animals will run all over them. I don't like many flowers, and definitely no pest-repelling ones, so I wouldn't care to bother with those.

Sounds good in theory, but I'm just not imagining it working out too well.
 
the other reason why i have herbs in the garden is because i cook. i'm studying to be a chef. it's nice to have stuff fresh than dried stuff you have to buy from the store. the fact that they're repellents is the side effect for me.
 
I dont have much problem with Aphids ,but them dam hornworms came early this year and usually you just get a F!@#ed up branch,before you spot 'em ,But they hit some small plants and wiped 'em clean.Found 2 today and took great pleasure in squishing their guts out! Not a big fan of "trap" crops ,I think that it invites the pests to come closer.
Kevin
 
I dont know if you increase your odds of getting hornworms by having them with your peppers. I think hornworms will visit regardless. But if I only have 10 pepper plants in a garden and hornworms arrive, he's gonna hit one of the ten. If I have ten peppers and ten nasturtiums, then I cut my odds in half. Maybe more if they truly will pick the nasturtiums over the pepper. And I think you can buy them for a few bucks at home depot or lowes. I spray BT on my plants now, so I think I'll be allright. The problem is that hornworms are too fast to keep up with. You can lose a plant in two days if you dont catch them in time. I lost a couple monster producing Red Savinas a few years back when three or four of those mother f------ visited while I was away for a long weekend. It was like they rang the dinner bell as soon as my car left the driveway. They looked like they got hit with a weedeater and I was so pissed.
 
This is an old thread, that I find interesting. I was wondering if anybody ever tried using systemic insecticides on trap plants that attracts aphids and other sucking insects as a form of pest control? The trap plant will not just act as sacrificial plant but as killer plant as well.

Mark T
 
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