Your Gardening Companion
Selected Herbs for Creating a 3 B's Garden: Beneficial Insects, Butterflies and Bees
(Seed Packages for Sale)
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We all know the importance of honey bees to our gardens and the world. We also know that herbs have countless culinary and medicinal uses. Did you know herbs can also be grown to attract the three B’s to your garden: Beneficial Insects, Butterflies and Bees?
Tomatoes and peppers tend to self-pollinate but if you are growing cucumbers, squash, zucchini and melons, you definitely want the buzzing of bees and beneficial insects flying throughout your garden. Butterflies are attracted to many types of herbs and will use some of them as an integral part of their life cycle. Insects that eat insects will come to your garden, like ladybugs and overflies, and help take care of aphids and other unwanted visitors. Honey bees and bumblebees love the flowers from this mix of herbs.
I put together a package of 6 specific herbs that will easily fill 100 square feet. Plant a large area or several small areas and leave them to flower and reseed year after year. Just water them in for 10 days and forget them. Sure, you can sneak in and collect a few leaves for yourself, but these herbs are for the three B’s.
Cilantro or Coriander is one of the best herbs for beneficial insects. The fragrant white flowers are a favorite of some of the smallest pollinators around. The flowers grow in a manner that makes their 'food' easily accessible to bees, beneficial insects and butterflies. It is an annual that can take the cold and heavily reseeds.
Borage has bright blue star shaped flowers that are magnets for bees and other pollinators. They are full of nectar that the bees love, and the flowers tend to bloom all season long. Borage is known as a honey plant, and it is grown by many beekeepers near their apiaries. Even hummingbirds love it.
Anise is another herb the produces masses of small white flowers and bees love them. Anise oil is used to attract bees. The fragrance has been proven to be a highly attractive scent for drawing in pollinators.
Fennel is a preferred food source for butterflies. It is a delicacy for the Swallowtail. They will use the plant to host their eggs, and you will see the life cycle of the butterfly. That is, you will see a lot of wildly colored caterpillars. Honey bees are also attracted to fennel and love their tiny yellow flowers. It has a wonderful anise licorice taste to its leaves and bulb. It is an annual in zones 3-9. Likewise, it will reseed heavily.
Dill is very similar to fennel. It has white flowers that are loved by the 3 B’s. Dill and fennel have similar leaf structures, which are favored by developing caterpillars that will turn into butterflies. Predatory insects like ladybugs are drawn to the flowers and leaf structure of both dill and fennel. The gift of ladybugs is that they will take care of aphids in your garden. Dill is also a big favorite of overflies. Dill is an annual that will reseed heavily.
Hyssop produces masses of dark blue flowers on spires that bloom July through September. You can cut back spent flowers for more blooms. This is a favorite of bees. You will see bees crawling up and down the spikes of beautifully colored flowers. The leaves have a mint licorice scent, and it is a perennial in Zones 4-8.
The combination of these 6 herbs, planted in the corner of your garden, will bring in an army of beneficial predatory insects, honey bees, bumblebees, butterflies and even hummingbirds. The combined scents of the flowers and leaves will serve your garden well. Growing these herbs will provide a food source for honey bees, a home to the Swallowtail Caterpillars, and a haven for all the good insects your gardens need. Hyssop is a perennial but will also seed heavily like the other five herbs. Your 3 B's garden will take care of itself year after year.
You can pick these herbs up as you find them on your travels, or purchase them from me as a package that can be scattered throughout your garden. The seeds are quite distinctive, and you can easily pick them out for your own personal needs too! The seed picture above holds the measure of seeds that come in the package, which is approximately 1/2 ounce.
You can find this item and many more on my new Seed Shop and Garden Shop on Shopify at this link: The Rusted Garden Seed Shop.
Start Your Perennial Herbs Indoors
How and Why to Start Perennial Herbs Indoors (in Pictures)
Gardening is more than a hobby and a bit less than a way of life. It is a heartfelt choice to live and engage life at its most basic roots... on the earth.
That being said, it is time to get your perennial seeds started. I will be blogging quite a bit this year, and I hope to write some motivational blogs (so to speak) to get the new gardeners dirtier or the procrastinating gardener (me!) to the task. The task today, or to be fair, this month, is to start those perennial herbs.
You want to start these herbs now in January because they take a long time to germinate and a good amount of time to grow to size for transplanting outdoors. Plus, it gives you something to do now.
You can see you will need the basic supplies of seed trays and starter mix. I mentioned in a Vegetable Garden Tip, to pre-moisten your starter mix. You also have to wash your seed trays and cells if you are recycling last year's models. It is recommended you wash them with a 10% bleach solution. I thoroughly washed mine with soap and water.
I will be planting 144 cells, and I overcrowd my cells. After division, I will have about 300 herbs. The total cost of all the materials, if I bought them new, would be about $28. Since I am recycling the trays and cells, the cost for seeds and starter mix is about $14. That is pretty good, considering 1 herb plant can cost you 3-5$.
You will need a place for the cells to sit once planted. If you have a sunny location that will work well, or if your wife doesn't like the dirt, well, a growth closet is perfect.
Set the cells up in the trays and fill them with the seed starting mix. It is important to make sure you press the starter mix into the cell with your thumb and then refill them. The starter mix is very loose. You want to pack it in moderately. A loose starter mix will encourage your seeds to fall to the bottom of the tray. The seeds should be planted on a firm base.
The Popsicle sticks have a lot of functions. I use them to mix the seeds into the starter mix, firming the cell down gently with my thumb, and label each square of cells with the seed names and dates.
For herbs that are perennials, I over plant. They are hardy plants and can withstand being torn in clumps. The lavender and rosemary need to be separated into single plants (maybe two) when transplanting to cups. But the other herbs can be over planted - in both the cells and transplant cups.
An example is oregano. The seeds are very small. You do NOT need to plant one seed and wait for that plant to mature. It will painfully take forever. Over plant. The dominant seedlings will take off, and others will die back, but in the end, you will establish a great transplant.
I simply pinch the oregano seeds in my fingers and gently rub 10 to 20 seeds per cell. I used the Popsicle stick to mix the starter mix and seeds to about 1/4 of an inch depth and gently pressed down the mix. Don't get too caught up in 1/4 or 1/8 for planting depth. Let nature work.
The best trick I learned a long time ago was to bottom water. If you try and water new seeds from the top, you will wash them away.
The seeds don't need light for the first 5 days and probably longer, but you don't want to risk leggy seedlings. The perennial herbs can take up to 3-4 weeks to germinate, so be patient. The beauty of a growth closet is I can set a light timer, check the water every few days and just close the door. You want your plants to get 10-12 hours of grow light - light. The plants should sit 1-3 inches beneath the bulbs.
