Beneficial Plants in Organic Gardening

If you choose to go organic you will soon realise that you will need every tip & trick in the book to ensure that your garden functions well and remains pest & disease free. There are many ways to control pest numbers and minimise weed control without having to resort to chemicals. Working with various ‘beneficial’ garden plants is one to the many tools that an organic gardener can adopt to maintain a healthy garden.

Beneficial Plants for Pest Control
The idea here is to grow certain plants that will attract beneficial insects or to grow plants that will repel pests or in other cases to grow plants to lure pests away from crops.

Plant Dill, Angelica, Coriander, Fennel, Dandelion & Yarrow to attract lace wings into your garden. These flies will help to reduce aphids, caterpillar eggs, leaf hoppers, thrips, mealy bugs & mites

Plant native fruiting bushes including Whitethorn, Hazel, Bird Cherries & Brambles to attract song birds. These will feast on slugs & caterpillars

Plant Yarrow, Bugleweed, Dill, Penstemon, Potentilla, Dandelion, Speedwell, Fennel & Buckwheat to attract ladybugs. Ladybugs will eat whitefly, blackFly, greenfly, scale insects & small caterpillars

Plant Yarrow, Bugleweed, Alyssum, Dill, Linaria, Lobelia, Sweet Alyssum, Lemon Balm, Mint, Asters, Astrantia, Potentilla, Rudbeckia, Sedums, Chrysanthemum, Coriander, Lavender, Cosmos, Parsley, Buckwheat, Egg Plant, Veronica, Thyme & Monarda to attrack hoverflies. These will eat mites, mealy bugs & aphids

Plant Yarrow, Dill, Anthemis, Astrantia, Linaria, Lobelia, Sweet Alyssum, Tansy, Thyme, Coriander, Limonium, Fennel, Cosmos & Zinnia to Attract the parastic wasp. These microscopic organisms can populate your garden soil and live off pests including caterpillars & white flies

Plant Buckwheat, Lemon Balm, Mint, Parsley, Tansy & Thyme to attract tachinid flies. The larvae of this fly lives in soil & eats pests including caterpillars, beetles, cutworms & armyworms

Plant Marigolds or 'Tagetes' to Attract the prasitic nematode. These will eat slugs & snails, weevils, wireworms & other pest larvae

Other beneficial plants include the following...

Nitrogen Fixers

• Alfalfa, Peas, Beans & Honeysuckle

Plant with Cabbage

• Celery, Dill, Onions & Potatoes for healthy growth
• Clover to deter aphids
• Chamomile for better taste
• Plant Thyme to deter Cabbage worm

Plant with Carrots

• Leeks & Garlic deter Carrot fly
• Interplant with Onions to deter Carrot fly
• Flax to protect against various pests
• Chives to improve taste

Plant with Tomatoes

• Mint & Chives to improve taste
• Basal to deter flies
• Dill for healthy growth
• Borage to deter Tomato worm

Plant with Potatoes

• Flax, as tannins deter potato bug
• Comfrey to protect from Potato Scab
• Horseradish for all round better health
• Alyssum for mulch & weed control

Growing Nasturtiums

• Essential in every organic garden
• These beneficial plants can be planted along with Cabbage, Broccoli, Radish, Kale & Cauliflower
• Deter Aphids
• Improve flavour
• Deter Wooly Aphids, Whiteflies, Cucumber Beetles & more