GARDEN: Increased species diversity diminishes pest problems

Ambrosia cantaloupe is still my old favorite, but I’ve been impressed by the new honeydew hybrids that have firm, orange flesh, as well as the small, extremely aromatic and flavorful Charentais melons.

Melons like warm soil, lots of room, no competition from weeds or each other, and plenty of water.

Two other heat lovers: watermelons and okra, go in when it’s quite warm, late May to June.

Most gardeners find watermelons take up a lot of room for little yield, though Sugar Bush is a compact variety with excellent fruit.

Sweet potatoes. Need to cover a fence quickly?

Sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family. The vines are quite vigorous and have attractive foliage.

Yard-long beans. Unlike green beans, these pea relatives prefer high temperatures. These are also fast-growing vines; they start to produce in August.

Basil grows very easily here and can be planted all through the summer. While bees love the flowers of basil, gardeners usually pinch the blossoms off to keep the plants producing, or just keep planting more every few weeks. There are new basil varieties that don’t flower at all! Emerald Towers makes a little shrub-like plant with greattasting leaves right up until frost.

Not this time of year: We get a lot of people looking for leafy greens such as

Courtesy photo kale and lettuce. Unfortunately, those are not tolerant of summer heat. they just go to flower and seed right away if you plant them now. Swiss chard is one leafy green that you can plant now. We’ll start planting those other coolseason greens again in fall.

Borage is one of my favorite self-seeding garden flowers. The flowers are cool blue, the leaves smell like cucumbers, all parts are edible, and the flowers attract honeybees. Easy to grow!

Likewise, cilantro and dill, which prefer the milder weather of spring and fall, and broccoli family members which we plant in fall for winter harvest.

Flowers for the summer garden

There are lots of great reasons to mix vegetables and flowers together. Having an abundance of flowers attracts pollinators and provides habitat for beneficial insects. Summer annual flowers can take the same soil and watering as your vegetables.

Some of the summer annuals I routinely plant in or around my vegetables:

■ Borage

You only need to plant this once. It will reseed freely. Cool blue flowers and leaves that smell like cucumbers. Borage is notably attractive to honeybees.

■ Cosmos and Zinnias

These love heat and don’t like cold soil, so they’re best planted during May – June, with blooms from summer through fall.

■ Sunflowers

Plant anytime from April into mid-summer. Sunflowers, and daisies of all kinds, draw many types of bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. For seeds to roast, as well as enormous plants, plant Russian Mammoth. There are dozens of varieties available, ranging from those giants down to very dwarf types, in a range of colors from the traditional golden yellow to dark, dark red.

Sunflowers sprout very readily and can be planted directly from seed. Just be aware that the seeds and seedlings are very popular snacks for earwigs, snails, birds, and squirrels, so protecting the young seedlings with strawberry baskets or small wire cages may be necessary.

■ Mexican sunflowers

If you have room for a large plant with bright orange flowers and want to draw all kinds of butterflies and hummingbirds, plant Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). They can get to six feet tall, branch freely, and bloom all the way from mid-summer through fall.

Thai basil and holy basil have very pungent leaves that are used in certain types of cuisine. They also flower very quickly from seed or transplants, have pretty flowers over a long season, reseed freely, and attract bees and butterflies.

How about marigolds?

Marigold plants have some issues. The seedlings are often eaten by earwigs and snails. The foliage gets damaged by thrips and mites by mid-summer. But despite all that, they flourish in sunny gardens and the old-fashioned tall ones can be dramatic.

No, contrary to popular belief, marigolds don’t protect other plants or repel insect pests. It is true that some types of marigolds kill some types of root nematodes and are planted for that purpose in crop rotations where root-knot nematode is a problem. But planting a marigold next to your tomato plant doesn’t confer any protection to the tomato. It does, like other flowers, draw butterflies and bees and enhance species diversity.

Gardeners who work to increase species diversity in their gardens find that their pest problems diminish over time. Having more different types of flowering plants is a simple way to achieve that diversity and natural pest control.

Lots of folks get concerned when we start getting daytime temperatures in the 90s, thinking that it’s too late to plant and they’ve missed the season. Don’t worry, we have a very long growing season here and most of our summer vegetables are subtropical or even tropical species.

You may not like the heat, but it’s what those types of plants thrive on.

■ Plant in the cool of the day for your own health and comfort.

■ Water each plant thoroughly at the time of planting.

■ Check daily and water as needed, typically every 2 to 3 days at first.

Sunflowers come in a range of warm colors from the familiar golden yellow, to striped yellow bicolors, to dark mahogany red.

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■ Mulch to smother weeds.

■ Water more deeply and less often as the season goes along (if you can; raised planters may still need daily watering through the summer). Then just harvest regularly – and figure out what to do with all that surplus produce!

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Tithonia is called Mexican sunflower. It is a vigorous grower, usually to about six feet tall, with a steady succession of these hot orange flowers from mid-summer through fall. These flowers are among the most attractive to butterflies that I’ve seen. Plant anytime May through June.