Pondering Companions

I'm a little disappointed because I planted my tomatoes with my roses to help with black spot, but instead the roses gave my tomatoes spider mites. I will spray everything again with safer soap tomorrow, but I just don't know if anything will be saved at this point. As I deadheaded my roses this afternoon, leaves just kept falling off. A couple bushes have practically no leaves at all. At this point, I'm seriously considering digging up the roses with the tomatoes this fall and starting completely over. Those roses have been diseased since I inherited them.

Since I realized I had spider mites, I have continued to research organic methods. I realized what I need is to attract beneficial insects. I have downplayed the importance of flowers in my garden. I found a good companion plant site: Garden Toad's Companion Plant Guide. Not only does it have a chart of companion plants like I have in several other places, it includes what the plants do, and it has a separate chart of plants that attract beneficial insects and what they attract. Among the most interesting is cosmos which attract praying mantises and morning glories which attract ladybugs and syrphid flies. So next year I will definitely be including, cosmos, marigold, morning glory, pot marigold, and nasturtiums in my garden plan. They are all pretty, and hopefully they will help restore some balance to my little ecosystem.

On the good side, I noticed I have tiny peppers forming on my Carmen plant and a few cherry tomatoes forming. My leeks are starting to come up as well. I planted corn in the raised bed and started some more dill and zinnias in containers. I also fertilized my broccoli and brussels sprouts with bone/blood meal and mulched them with grass clippings. I raked all the clippings into piles from when David mowed Thursday. I will probably put the rest directly on the compost pile at this point. It got too hot to do that earlier, but I will finish that this evening.