Planting With Marigolds

One of my hops seems to be suffering from some little monster bug chompers. So I got some marigolds to plant with them. Is it ok to plant them directly into the half whiskey barrel? The marigolds are already bloomed flowers, not seeds, and I guess they came in a pot themselves.

 

I have seen that before. Other than aphids I don't know what marigolds repel, but it wont hurt you hops.

 

Marigolds repel rabbits, I plant them all around my garden each year to keep the rabbits out.

 

Yeah, you can plant them right in there. I know they repel rabbits but never heard of anything else.

So they repel aphids you say? Huh...

 

I use to have a lot of roses in the front of my house. Right behind a section of the roses There's a planter box (eight feet long). One year I planted marigolds for the heck of it. The section where the marigolds were never had aphids, the rest of the roses (like usual) got them bad and had to be sprayed.

 

That sounds like they arent attracted to marigolds but dont exactly repel them. If they repelled them I would think they would keep the aphids away from the roses in front too...

 

Marigolds repel a lot of bugs but the also attract a lot of bugs.. Think of them as a sacrificial plant. They'll go after the marigolds before the look at your hops.

 

The section (of roses) where the marigolds were never had aphids, the rest of the roses (like usual) got them bad and had to be sprayed.

 

Here is an earlier picture of my garden with the Marigolds planted. I must say that so far they have done a great job overall but recently I have seen an increase in Japanese Beetles. Nothing too stressing though.

 

I can't remember where I read it, but it said that Marigolds work to repel some insects. ANd they seem to be working for me.

Prior to planting the Marigolds, I was seeing bugs on my Mt. Hoods daily, sometimes twice a day, even if I sprayed insecticidal soap in the morning. SInce planting them on June 23 I've only seen bugs on the Mt. Hoods about 2 times, and significantly seen a decrease in my leafs getting eaten. Almost not a problem anymore, and I haven't had to spray the soap since.

 

I've too noticed Japanese Beetles. They munched the token sacrificial rasberry bush at one end of my yard, and found their way to the cascades.

I discovered my local stores carry Japanese Beetle traps. These actually work great. I was actually very pleased with how effective they are. In fact, while setting the trap up, the Japanese Beetles were coming to me in the yard. I had a few in the trap before I even got it hung up.

Just make sure you set the traps up away from your protected plants. It will indeed draw them towards where the trap is hanging. I placed 2 in my yard, and both are rather full of bugs after a week's time. Haven't seen a single one on the hops since. :rockin:

B

 

And all the beetles that don't make it into the traps eat everything into the area. The trap bags can also fill up. And they attract the beetles from all of your neighbors as well, so I am sure your neighbors are happy!

If you are going to put a trap up, you are going to have a lot of grub larvae going into the ground, so you had better treat it with Imidicloprid and/or Chlorantraniliprole to kill those grubs in the late summer and first sign of spring.


As for companion planting, there were some extensive threads on that from this spring and here is a link to a nice spreadsheet maintained by fattymatty:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aitc3OdxDO-WcHBCTExuaVBqTTZKc1l3TnJlTmhZVXc&hl=en#gid=0

Having a full array of companion plantings is key to trying to maintain a healthy balance in the garden.

For japanese beetles specifically, while I get some hop munching like everyone else, I find they prefer my butterfly bush, birch tree, and especially my pole beans over the hops. They haven't even bothered my raspberries yet with those others to distract them.

 

I've had the Japanesse beatles on my marigolds, but they have thankfully left my hops alone...so far.