Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Although i doubt it is the smell of the onions that does it; onions do indeed work to deter some bugs. As do Marigolds. And garlic. And geraniums.
And if you skip like every third or fourth or tenth of whatever you have planned for that row and set in one of the above instead, it can be effective without taxing the designated veggie crop.
Some proven and universal companion planting seems a valid thing to me, but the more i research "companion planting experts' " sites, the more contradictions i find. One will say tomatoes and beans love each other, the next says tomatoes and pole beans hate each other. I nearly went mad trying to lay out my garden Mittleider-wise AND considering companions where i could...finally went back to basic Mittleider and added in the few tried and true companions named above. Everything has thrived. Have had a few Japanese beetles, but they were few enough to hand-pick and nothing else has been bothered...
I have to add, though, that this year even the old-fashioned tall and smelly kind of marigolds have not slowed down the mosquitoes...they are the size of pteradactyls and positively voracious! They swarm like i have never seen before, enveloping anything warm-blooded within moments. And their bites are raising welts on some of us who have never been troubled by allergies at all. The one thing i have found to keep them away from my person is good ol' Avon's Skin-So-Soft.
The other thing we are finding way more of, and earlier than usual, this year is spiders of many varieties.

schulz in south central Wisconsin

----- Original Message -----
From: dgibsond1
To: MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 7:24 AM
Subject: [MittleiderMethodGardening] Re: Squash bugs

I haven't seen any one mention planting onions around the edge of the bed. Plant them a couple of weeks before you put in the squash plants so they are up and growing. The bugs can't find the squash because of the scent of the onions.

We use the little "bunching" onions and we have had very few single squash bug in the three times we have used the onions. The onions are very prolific and reseed themselves year to year.

(We do not recommend companion planting because different varieties compete for the same light, space, water, and food. If you're planting the onions as a bug deterrent only, and not expecting a viable crop it might be worth it - if the onions ARE indeed a deterrent. - JK)

David

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