Companion Planting Recommended Books

With the thousands of books that have been written about gardening, organic gardening, and companion planting, you may find it difficult to choose the right book for you...

We found ourselves in the same situation. Perhaps our choice of books will help you to narrow down your purchase...

For Companion Planting, we purchased the following two books:

1. 
   
2. 

What one book leaves out, the other includes.

Our favorite tip:

Plant Borage! This beautiful plant will re-seed itself for the next year as well. Plant near your tomatoes - they love them! Not only that, borage attract bees which will also come across your tomatoes, peppers and other veggies. Other benefits of borage - the flowers look rather lovely in a vase, providing beautiful filler and added color to floral arrangements.

Borage is also an edible salad green, and the flowers are an anti-depressant! Eduardo Machado, a plant specialist from Uruguay recommends eating 7 flowers a day to keep the blues away. They're not bad!

Other methods we have used successfully include growing garlic and parsley near your roses...

More photos coming soon - please stay tuned!

~~~~~~
Anya

Have you ever seen Ladybug Larvae devour aphids?

Spring has sprung in San Diego, and with the recent rains, everything is growing like crazy. Weeds, plants, and bugs! 

We use organic methods for pest control and have purchased a couple of ladybug colonies over the last 2 years. I have tried time and time again to move a ladybug to an aphid infested plant to see her happily and gratefully feast on the buffet prepared for her. However, she has always refused to take her meal at my beckoning, and usually flies away, quite irritated with me at that.

Until now, my goal of getting some photos of a ladybug in the act of eating aphids has failed. But wait!

On March 21, 2010, I was passing by my little flower rock garden in the front yard, and I spied a couple of ladybug larvae on my mini rose bush. When I bent down to take a look, why, here they were feasting on a group of aphids that had literally covered a rose bud until you could not recognize it!

Over the course of the next four hours, the group of three larvae devoured every single aphid from the plant.

Hooded Oriole Juvenile in San Diego March 2010