How to protect and pollinate your vegie patch | Gardening Hacks | Gardening Australia
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- Costa looks at some plants to provide protection from the elements and attract pollinating insects to your patch. Subscribe 🔔 ab.co/GA-subscribe
In nature, plants help each other out - trees share their shade, flowers invite the birds and bees, and grasses and groundcovers act as a living mulch keeping other plants from drying out. It’s no different in the vegetable patch. You’re contending with wind and pests while keeping the soil healthy and moist, so why not enlist the help of some useful plants!
Using a variety of plants inside and out of the vegie bed can help with pollination, protection and make your job a little easier (and fun!) in the long run.
Wind:
Small shrubs can help create a more protected microclimate whilst providing great habitat and food for wildlife and invertebrates. You can put short plants into pots around the bed to lift them up higher and to make them portable if you need to adjust layout and shading through the seasons.
You can use what you’ve got in the garden already - such as tried and true rosemary or English lavender - or try westringia that is an incredibly wind tolerant native and brings you loads of little flowers throughout the year. Space these closer together (eg 50-75cm) if you want to create a more solid hedge border, or further apart for an informal border that has more airflow.
Water:
So now your patch is protected from above, what about below? Planting more into the patch can increase soil activity and act as living mulch to keep soil moist, especially between crops. One option is to use groundcovers that are tolerant of being clipped back or moved if you need more space. Another option is to use annuals (seasonal potted colour), especially those with spreading habits or rosettes of leaves that cover the soil well.
Leave plenty of space for your veg to grow. More plants will mean more competition, but if it leads to better quality produce and a beautiful sight, it’s worth a shot! Indulge in flowers!
You might already have some favourites, such as creeping thyme, pansies for winter colour, or even succulents like native pig face (which is also edible!).
Pollinators:
If you plant something that flowers throughout the year and/or when your patch is less productive, you are going to attract a lot more beneficial bugs and keep them there. Pollinators are important for productivity, increasing yields of fruit trees, tomatoes and more.
There are lots of species of native bees in Australia and of course, they’ve co-evolved with native plants, so get some in! A range of flower shapes and colours will create a welcoming environment.
Hoverflies are also a common visitor - they look a bit like a honeybee or wasp at first, with black and yellow markings (but stingless!) and play a similar role in pollination. They love small flowers, like those from parsley, thyme (let them go to flower) and daisies and may come to your patch seeking shade on hot days too.
Pests:
Some hoverflies and lacewings lay their eggs around aphids, so the larvae have an easy meal, and they are a natural pest controller. More invertebrate diversity = keeping infestations in check and less need for sprays and effort. Increasing your plant type diversity can also distract pests and/or give them something else to eat.
Insectivorous birds are another natural predator, so by creating sheltered habitat nearby you can encourage small species to pop by to pick off an aphid or two.
Things like grevilleas attract birds and insects with their nectar and shelter.
Featured Plants:
LAVENDER - Lavandula stoechas ‘Avonview’ *
ROSEMARY - Salvia rosmarinus
NATIVE ROSEMARY - Westringia fruticosa cv.
NATIVE ROSEMARY - Westringia fruticosa ‘Zena’
CALENDULA - Calendula officinalis
SWEET ALYSSUM - Lobularia maritima cv.
PANSY - Viola cv.
PAPER DAISY - Rhodanthe anthemoides ‘Red Point’
NATIVE DAISY - Brachyscome cv.
PROSTRATE GREVILLEA - Grevillea ‘Winter Delight’
COMMON EVERLASTING - Chrysocephalum apiculatum cv.
* (Check before planting: this may be an environmental weed in your area)
Filmed on Gadigal & Wangal Country | Newtown, NSW
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" A flower makes you smile, and a smile, is therapy." Beautifully said, Costa!
Love you enthusiasm Costa, keep growing on mate.
Costa!! What a Great Australian!! And has he taught us so much about Gardening. He should be Australian of the year!
Well he is without the Award!! There will be Protest if he Ever leaves our Screens! As he makes this Show and Anything he puts his mind too!
Costa thank you so much.
Aussie chrisso 🇦🇺 ♥️
I love this show
I wish everyone would get into Gardening
Great concept attracting beneficial insects and birds to plants in the same area as your most vulnerable plants. Well thought out.
I found garlic helps keep pests away too. The flower stalks look nice as well and keeps the garden happy 😊
Thanks Costa, you always bring joy to my life when I watch your program. Smiles from Tasmania 😀
Happy to hear that! Thanks for watching :)
Great show people just picked some blue berries that I have grown 👍👍👍👀👀👀
Valuable knowledge on ye’ol patch
🌏💥👍👍Keep up the excellent work, Costa👍👍💥
Fantastic video 💕
Wow So Amazing🌲 ❤👍😍
Very very cool ... 👌👌 Success ... ⚘⚘ !!!
🌸 Flowers to buy 🌱
Small shrubs (lavender)
rosemary - edible or non edible (if you have children I suggest only planting edibles)
Thyme
Oregano
Sage
Pansy
Calendula
Sweet Alyssum
And borage
Can I let kale, rocket, and other certain types on vegies go to seed together? Or should I only let one go to seed if close together?
Nice vidio
Biodiversity reaps rewards.
Costa you want bees try sugar water spray that around the garden or on a certain area
I want to see his face once.
Lol..whenever he does a video, my first words when I see it are..'have a shave ya scruff' 🤣🤣
there will be like zillion slugs on the alyssum & all marigold =]]
I am a beekeeper. Bees work 2400 acres of land. They do not go nectarine dandelion tomato. They find a worthwhile area and will return. Planting flowers in your garden will attract them but if they are on your flowers and not your crops they will not increase your crop. Plant a bigger patch and they might pick it as a worthwhile visit otherwise you are wasting garden space attracting them
Thanks for sharing. What do you mean by “plant a bigger patch”? Do you mean more veggies so there are more veggie flowers to attract to the veggies, rather than flowers?
You're talking about honey bees, but there are countless other bee species, flies, butterflies, wasps, hornets...
Fun Fact: Costa is the lovechild of Don Burke and Kylie Minogue.
Lol..I cracked up at that one..and now, like Kylie, I just cant get that out of my head...lol🤣🤣
@@catey62 lol
I want to see him fully shaven next please. Thank you.
That’s impossible he’s a spotted bull frog 🐸 from Canada 🇨🇦 🐸 🪒. If shaved he becames garden mulch 🤟
Me Says: being clean shaven doesn’t affect this situation at all. So no thank you. Your request is unreasonable, irrelevant and pointless. Thank you.
@@HGCUPCAKES did I say clean. I simply would like to see him without the wilderness warmer. Seeing a gardener in their true form is always relevant. But let's say that I found myself a little bit of outback I want to explore.
He can grow a beard but is misleading people about bees which him and his cohorts know very little. 40 years working and learning bees i forgot more than they know
I assume you are talking European honey bees. Didn’t hear them mentioned at all, but may have missed that. Costa mentions native bees and other pollinators and beneficial insects, not to mention birds. They all do a great job in my garden, I don’t need honey bees but they are also welcome when they appear.
So many men are jealous of his beard 🤣🤣
It’s your public space here to contribute advice for all to learn and benefit, accordingly