Wonderful ladybug weed

TZ-OH6 · June 12, 2009

My main tomato garden is in a clearing hacked out of a wilderness covered by multiflora rose, blackberry brambles and other assorted weeds.

One of the main weeds that grows all around (and in) the garden plot is wild carrot/Queen Anne's Lace. It has always been a weed on the property, and in the past I have cut and sprayed it to my heart's content (doesn't phase it). This year I let the whole area grow up in the spring to give the bees the benefit of the early wildflowers, and the wild carrot was free to take off.

The tomatoes in that area were host to a good population of aphids so I decided to plant ladybug flowers along the borders. I chose cosmos and naustertiums. Well, the cosmos and naustertiums, planted long ago, are now 3-6 inches tall. The Queen Anne's Lace, which starts growing as soon as snow thawed, is 8-9 feet tall, covered in flowers, and the flowers are covered in ladybugs, hover flies (another aphid predator) and various bees, all in time for my tomato plants to start flowering.....and the deer do not eat it.

I wonder if lady bugs like Milkweed? That's the next major weed to flower.

June 12, 2009	#1
TZ-OH6 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Mid-Ohio Posts: 850	Wonderful ladybug weed My main tomato garden is in a clearing hacked out of a wilderness covered by multiflora rose, blackberry brambles and other assorted weeds. One of the main weeds that grows all around (and in) the garden plot is wild carrot/Queen Anne's Lace. It has always been a weed on the property, and in the past I have cut and sprayed it to my heart's content (doesn't phase it). This year I let the whole area grow up in the spring to give the bees the benefit of the early wildflowers, and the wild carrot was free to take off. The tomatoes in that area were host to a good population of aphids so I decided to plant ladybug flowers along the borders. I chose cosmos and naustertiums. Well, the cosmos and naustertiums, planted long ago, are now 3-6 inches tall. The Queen Anne's Lace, which starts growing as soon as snow thawed, is 8-9 feet tall, covered in flowers, and the flowers are covered in ladybugs, hover flies (another aphid predator) and various bees, all in time for my tomato plants to start flowering.....and the deer do not eat it. I wonder if lady bugs like Milkweed? That's the next major weed to flower.